We suffered a disappointing blow to our fight for survival as Raùl de Tomás’ second-half header condemned us to a 1-0 defeat at RCD Espanyol.
Vicente Moreno made two changes to his side following Matchday 22’s defeat to Real Valladolid, recalling Aleix Febas in place of Cucho Hernández and swapping Alejandro Pozo for Joan Sastre. Elsewhere in our 4-2-3-1 formation, Antonio Raillo recovered from an earlier injury scare to join Salva Sevilla in facing their former club.
Our visiting bench thought we had taken an early lead in the seventh minute when Lumor cut the ball back to Ante Budimir inside the box, but the striker’s goal-bound effort took a deflection wide.
Quickly descending into an end-to-end period of play, the hosts immediately hit back through Jonathan Calleri and then Raúl de Tomás on the follow up although Manolo Reina was on hand to save well.
Drama was bound to follow such a frenetic tempo and in the 13th minute we were initially awarded a penalty for a shove on Budimir, but a VAR review adjudged the ball to have gone out of play during the build-up.
Both sides began to find their rhythm as chances then became few and far between prior to the break, with Adrían Embarba and Calleri working Reina while Salva Sevilla and Idrissu Baba also came close.
We drew the second half’s first blood minutes after the restart when Lago Junior made space for a saved effort, before Salva Sevilla had his whipped free-kick palmed away by Diego López with nobody in red and black able to capitalise on the follow up.
Against the run of play, Raúl de Tomás gave RCD Espanyol the lead when he rose highest at the back post to head home Sergi Darder’s cross moments before the hour mark.
We were never able to recover from the setback, and despite offensive substitutions in Cucho Hernández, Take Kubo and Abdón, in addition to Budimir just floating a header wide of the post in the dying moments, the hosts held onto to take all three points.
RCD Mallorca: Reina, Pozo, Raillo, Valjent, Lumor, Baba, Salva Sevilla (65’), Febas (72’), Lago Junior (80’), Dani Rodríguez, Budimir
Substitutes: Fabricio, Xisco Campos, Koutris, Sedlar, Kubo (65’), Cucho Hernández (72’), Abdón (80’)
RCD Espanyol: Lopez, Caberera, Vilà, Javi López, Bernardo, Embarba, David López (72’), Darder (85’), Roca, Calleri (65’), Raúl de Tomás
Substitutes: Andrés, Victor Sanchez (72’), Wu Lei, Melendo, Matías Vargas (65’), Calero, Gómez (85’)
Goals: Raúl de Tomás, 1-0 (58’)
