Our unbeaten start to the season continues as Dani Rodríguez’s 27th minute strike saw us overcome RCD Espanyol 1-0 at the Visit Mallorca Estadi.
Luis García Plaza made two changes to the side which beat Deportivo Alavés 1-0 on Matchday 2. Fer Niño was handed his first start at the expense of Abdón Prats, while Iñigo Ruiz de Galarreta was replaced by Salva Sevila.
A cagey opening against last year’s Segunda División champions meant chances were few and far between as the game settled into its rhythm, but that soon changed when Fer Niño managed to fire wide in the 21st minute.
A period of good play was rewarded six minutes later when Brian Oliván clipped the ball to the back post for the arriving Dani Rodrígue to power a strike past the outstretched Diego Lopez.
Former RCD Mallorca manager Vicente Moreno’s side looked to provide an instant response, but our defence remained solid and reduced the visitors to nothing further than interplay on the edge of the box.
Having enjoyed a larger portion of possession and created the more dangerous chances, we headed into the break with a slender lead on the back of Kubo coming close in the 43 minute.
Oliván’s marauding runs forward down the left flank continued to cause problems for the visitors and almost resulted in the goal when Dani Rodríguez slipped the defender in behind only for the resulting strike to go wide in the 72nd minute.
In his final action of the game before being substituted, Kubo cut inside and fired over the bar in the 82nd minute as we continued to search for a second goal.
The game would not end without further drama as Sergi Gómez was handed a straight red card for tripping substitute Amath Ndiaye as he raced through on goal in injury time.
We saw out our lead to record our second consecutive win and seven points from our opening three games.
RCD Mallorca: Reina, Maffeo, Valjent, Russo (46'), B. Oliván, Baba, Salva Sevilla (68'), Dani Rodríguez, Take (86'), Mboula (61'), Fer Niño (86')
Substitutes: Greif, Galarreta (68'), Febas, Abdón (86'), Lago, Battaglia (86'), Costa, Sedlar (46'), Amath (61'), Gálvez, Gayà, Mollejo
Goals: Dani Rodríguez, 1-0 (27')
