Marcelo Gallardo and another silence that speaks volumes in the complex panorama of River

Silences sometimes say much more than words. And the absence of Marcelo Gallardo’s voice for the third consecutive time after a Professional League match reveals what is happening right now at the River, in which, obviously, there are no answers to explain this bad football moment he is going through. At least hot and, therefore, this Tuesday will be in front of the microphones at the River Camp in Ezeiza, starting at 12:30.

Gallardo feels he has already said too much the last few times he spoke, both after the removal of the Libertadores Cup as after the victory against Central Barracks on Argentine Cup. Both were in the midst of these three consecutive league games that he left speechless and in which there was no victory, as his team fell in. Hurricane Y Godoy Cruz and tied with Velez.

A Gallardo word would have been heard if Abiel Osorio didn’t he push the ball into the net in injury time? Would the River manager have sat in front of a microphone if his team had gone away with the win at Liniers? It is difficult to know, although it is possible that yes.

The smile that Gallardo had found after his team’s victory over Barracas Central in San Luis for the Argentine Cup was canceled in 45 minutes. It is that after a first half in which River showed good signals in Liniers and after going to the interval 2-1, Núñez’s team collapsed in the complement. And the responses requested by the coach are missing again.

According to sources close to the technical staff, Gallardo is shocked and he sees that there is little reaction from his players on the pitch. And even if with Barracas Central he felt that there was a commitment, from the football point of view the team returned to the square in Liniers as in game of the goose.

It is that in the second half there was a setback. And not just because the team played lower. He devoted himself to resisting failed to catch the ball and both physically and aptly he could not resist the push of Vélez, who once again overtook him in the splits as he had in the Copa Libertadores series.

There was no reaction from the players on the playing field. And from the bench? Gallardo sent Juanfer Quintero, Pochettino and Paradela to the field in a game where he needed more friction and none of those three players have it. Although it is also true that he did not have too many variations on the bench and Nicolás De La Cruz and Palavecino had to leave respectively for a blow and a nuisance.

The football disorientation that can be seen on the pitch and Gallardo’s expressions of anger mean that the comings and goings with the players are not as fluid and there is not as much connection as at other times in his cycle. Indeed, the coach held interviews with the representatives before the thread became too tightespecially after the locker room after the defeat against Godoy Cruz was an erupting volcano, as they confided to Clarione close to campus.

The concern for the team’s play and the poor performance in the league, in which River is on the field position 16with 9 points (product of two wins, three draws and three defeats), 7 behind the leaders, are not the only issues that Gallardo may not have wanted to talk about.

The arbitrations are also generating irritation for the coach, who has accumulated anger over this issue since improper use of the VAR in the series with Vélez, in which a goal against Matías Suárez was canceled for an alleged handball never seen and the designation in the Argentine Cup against Barracas Central de Andres Merlosthat the coach targeted after the game by stating it “Despite not being up to the task, the team won and was solid”.

The match against Vélez also left a fever with arbitration (Patricio Loustau was the main and Darío Herrera was in charge of the VAR) because at River they felt the equalizer should have been revised as they saw a push from Lucas Pratto to Javier Pinola in the previous work.

In any case, although poor referee performance can cause wear and tear, River’s football problem runs much deeper. And he comes dragging. With the decisions made in the last markets. For this reason, it is no coincidence that Gallardo said that “we have to build a new team”. And maybe there are no more words …