Ponferrada need a win, not another draw

"We cannot keep saying we played well and got nothing," was the blunt message from the Ponferrada dressing room this week. They have a point. Four draws and a defeat in their last five league games tell their own story: 11th place, 21 points, and a campaign sliding towards mid-table mediocrity.

Monday brings Oviedo to El Toralín, and it is a chance to stop the rot. The visitors sit 17th with 18 points, only three clear of the drop zone. Their form is no better: a win, two draws and two defeats in the same stretch. But Ponferrada cannot afford to look at the table and expect anything. Three of the last four meetings between these sides have ended level, including a 0-0 at this ground in September 2062 and another in April that year. The one exception was a 1-0 Ponferrada win in Oviedo last February.

Roger Maah, Diogo Antunes and Iván Queiruga are all out for the visitors, a triple blow that weakens them at the back and in midfield. Ponferrada have no such injury list, but they have their own distraction: the Saudi millions circling Gino van Velzen and Van Wanrooij. The club have made it clear they will not sell their Dutch stars without a fight, but the noise from Jeddah will not go away until the transfer window closes.

Ponferrada's season has been one of fits and starts. They have not won in the league since November, and the 3-0 Champions League defeat at Young Boys only added to the gloom. Monday is a chance to remind themselves what winning feels like. Oviedo will be desperate, but desperation can be a weapon. Ponferrada must match it with urgency of their own.

A win would lift them back towards the European places, where this club now believes it belongs. A draw would satisfy nobody. The Bercianos faithful have seen too many of those lately.