We always love these. Valencia are second in La Liga in the La Liga after 10 games, ahead of the likes of Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla. In this same stage last season, they had sacked a manager and I believe they were in the relegation zone. Valencia were once a team consistently making it into quarter finals and semi finals of Champions League finals.

Unfortunately for them, they were bought by Peter Lim. He made quite a lot of mistakes, like putting too much faith in recruitment with Jorge Mendes, and the signings he made weren't so good. They appointed managers without a lot of experience, kept making poor signings and under preformed to the point of being in the relegation zone for quite a while last season. They got 18 losses last season, nearly half of their games!

They've had to change a lot of things, like bring in a new president, a new managing director, a new manager called Marcelino, who can set up his team to play excellent counter attacking football. They've signed players from either big teams or big money that didn't do so well, like Kondogbia and Zaza, and their form is being rediscovered due to Valencia's excellent coaching.

They are currently on a 7 game winning run, and this season they have already played Real Madrid, Sevilla, Socidad, and Atletico Madrid. Also, they are not in Europe, which will give them an advantage in the league

What are your thoughts? Will they get into the Champions League space for next season

La Liga is maybe even on better level than PL this season (so far). Honestly suprised all focus is on Valencia while Leganes, Sociedad and Betis are all doing very well. Valencia had players they just needed the manager. Marcelino got it all sorted for this season. All transfers were rather smart and paid off. They play simple yet effective football, I like that the most. Also I envy them for having Guedes (he's still owned by PSG tho), he is so good, he even blocks Andreas Pereira from playing much - despite Pereira has more La Liga experience. Rodrigo is also very good combined with Zaza, but man that impressed me the most is Soler. I already think he is one of best young midfielders, and he has been playing for one seasons and few months. Honestly he can do anything and he might make great career if he continues at this pace and stays for few years.

MAKE VALENCIA GREAT AGAIN

Haven't really followed their results that much this season but it really look like they are doing great, been great with their transfer and their management for sure. Heard that Guedes make such an impression that Zidane was actually interested in signing him from PSG. Anyway, other than that, if we take into account Atletico poor form last season, we can expect them to have a serious shot at finishing at least in the top 3 if they keep this up and that AM doesn't improve their form. :) Hope they manage to do it.

Marcelino has been one of the best decision the Valencia board has done in the last few years. He's actually implementing what he did with Villarreal when they were top 4. It's a lot of quick vertical plays. The team has also fit in quite well. I'm praying we splash out to make Guedes a permanent signing. Zaza has been playing well above my expectations and ghas gotten a good goal tally so far. Kondogbia is also key to hold the midfield presence and we still have youthlike Soler and Lito breaking into the team.

I was disappointed to see that we sold Diego Alves for only around 500k. He was a prolific goalkeeper and moat penalties saved in La Liga.Neto has done well, but I feel Alves could have done the job two more years at least.

Id say after two seasons we can judge if we are truly back or not. This season is a top 4 finish objective and next season will be to hold that position and do well in CL. Gotta say I'm glad we are still undefeated.

Clearly, the foundations and footballing philosophy that Gary Neville laid are finally starting to work out...

But more seriously, good for you Valencia. Hopefully they can keep this up and get back to the glory times. Going undefeated in the league so far is a great platform to build upon.

I dont think Gary deserves that much credit. He didn't build no foundation, he had some sense of management and develop a team as a coach. What he did almost all managers would likely to do. The "finally his philosophy start to...." claim is simply not true.

He failed, period. He did his job, was not good enough, he moved on. Other coach replaced and things start to work... As simple as that

Tuan, to me it looks like Lodatz was kidding and trolling lol

I was just being silly, yes.

@Lodatz I think Tuan missed the pic your posted, otherwise, he would have got it. I must say it doesn't appear automatically anymore for me. Am I the only one bothered when picture does that on the forum btw?

Anyway, I forgot to say it but I'm really happy for Zaza! Some of you might not remember it, but I have alway been one of his few fan. Here hoping he keep doing good for Valencia! :D And hopefully, no more dancing before taking a pen. XD

Damnnnnnn, lollllll. Thanks for backing me up @Emo. Indeed, the pic probably took somrtimes to load (external source latency) and I was already busy smashing the idea 😂

Not sure about that since it looks like the teams that tend to be in the top are simply not playing good right now and that may be the main reason for the current position of Valencia in the La Liga table. Premier league is still the best league.

@oGolazo what does the EPL being better or not have to do with this topic? Main reason we are on second place is because we are winning games we should be winning and at the very least getting a draw of we must. Even if Real and Atletico were at top level we would still be up there or there about. We've faced Real, Atletico, Bilbao and Sevilla and gotten points of all those teams while playing great. Barcelona is tough but Valencia always does well against them so I expect a draw or a win against them, it will come down to how well Messi plays.

Real, Atletico and Barcelona are all in a weaker state.

@raimondo Oh man, I completely forgot you were a Valencia fan! Congratulation on the good performance and on your place in the league table mate! Well deserve! :D

That remind me I might have a few question for you about Valencia later if you don't mind. :)

@Emo, Im not celebrating yet. We've done extremely well but at the same time Im worried about how we will react whenever the inevitable loss comes our way.
And yea man anytime, Ill try answering lol.

@raimondo Well, as a first, I wouldn't mind knowing more of how Zaza is doing, I apreciate him but haven't really been able to follow him at Valencia. It seem like he being decent from what you said at the very least. :)

I gotta say, I'm impressed by his improvement. Last season he was pretty bad and I was hoping we would get rid of him but this season its like a new player. He's scored 9 of our 30 goals putting him behind Messi as too scorer. Also, his goals have been important. He secured 3 wins for us. All around, if he can keep this up he will score about 20 this season, which isn't bad.

@Raimondo Nice, I hope he reach that. :D By the way, I finally decided to check out a bit more about you guys style of play and I remarked you play the less popular 4-4-2 formation that I'm a huge fan of. Also noted that Guedes seem to be one of your most important player statwise. Any more you can tell me about those fact? Also, did you knew Konami signed a exclusive deal with Valencia for PES?

It's a 4-4-2 but mostly play as a 4-4-1-1. With either Zaza or Rodrigo playing as CF and the other trying to back him up. But yea, these formations are pretty out of favor for the more common 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 and now the 3-5-1-1.
Guedes has been great so far, I knew very little about him before hand but id be happy if we made it permanent even at a +30mil deal. He scored a few great goals especially a long range shot recently I can't remember against who. Also his pace is very important to our attacks.
No idea about he Konami deal, but I'm not surprised, PES is heavily focused on getting the rights in Spain and Champions league meanwhile FIFA focused on England and a bunch of other leagues.

@Raimondo I'm a big PES player so I would know. :P But truth to be told, its not going right for Konami, they lost the right to La Liga, so the only team with real license are Barca, Atletico and now Valencia while the only licensed team in England are Arsenal, Liverpool and Fulham. :( They also lack the license of both Bayern and Juventus which is pretty bad for them and don't get me started on the national team. Anyway, back on Valencia. I gotta say that I'm suprised to see them do so well with player who flopped like Kondogbia or even Guedes (even if that one was more of lack of playtime for PSG), heres hoping they manage to take some of them permanently even though it could be kind of hard. At least, they could propably have some of them like Guedes on loan again, cause seriously, with Neymar and M'bappe, they don't really have place for him back at Paris.