2026/2027 season

La Liga

Team page

La Liga · Team page

RCD Espanyol

Head coach: Manolo González · 4-2-3-1

Rank

14th

Pts

8

P

9

Form

🟠

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings

5/10

Attack

7/10

Defence

3/10

Form

5/10

Confidence / mood

Current risk:High

14th with 8 pts from 9 matches: 2 wins, 2 draws, 5 defeats.

11 goals scored, 12 conceded.

The Cuti Romero left the countryside in the 63rd minute of the meeting between the Atletico de Madrid and the Espanyol to give entry to Rodrigo Mendoza. A change that justified the Cholo at a press conference ensuring that Mendoza "entered to give the message of going for the party." & nbsp;

Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

It was the 0-1 to the Espanyol to achieve the six consecutive victory of the Atletico of Madrid this season. & nbsp;

Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Drag back with a goal, win and cut the bad reddish streak Read

Marca · 17 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Real Madrid healed the wounds of the Classic with a solvent triumph by 3-1 to the Espanyol in the Alfredo Di Stéfano. After a thick first half that resolved Däbritz on the edge of the rest with a poisoned center, the Pau Quesada's made the shock in the second act.

Mundo Deportivo · 17 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches

Lvs Club Atlético de Madrid (H) · 0-1

Dvs Málaga CF (A) · 1-1

Lvs Elche CF (H) · 1-3

Lvs Rayo Vallecano de Madrid (A) · 1-2

Wvs CA Osasuna (A) · 2-0

WWDDLLLLL

11 scored / 12 conceded over 9 matches played

Rest: 1 day since the last match · 2 matches played in the last 15 days

Home form

1W - 1D - 3L

Away form

1W - 1D - 2L

Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match

1.0

Goals conceded per match

1.4

At home

1 scored · 4 conceded in 2 matches

Away

4 scored · 3 conceded in 3 matches

Over 2.5 goals

2 of 5

Both teams score

3 of 5

Clean sheets

1 of 5

Failed to score

1 of 5

Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How RCD Espanyol play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity

Preferred system

4-2-3-1

Philosophy

A compact, well-structured block, prioritising defensive order and the solidity of the double pivot, with quick progression out to the wingers and a clear direct game when the opponent's press forces play to skip lines.

Attacking strengths

Verified fact: 5 goals in 3 matchdays (3-0 against Levante on 16/08, 1-2 at the Bernabéu on 22/08, 1-2 at Anoeta on 29/08). Roberto Fernández is the offensive focal point — he equalised at Anoeta with a first-time finish (La Grada, 29/08/2026).

Defensive solidity

Verified fact: 4 goals conceded in 3 matchdays, including a clean sheet in the opening match against Levante; both defeats were conceded 1-2 in the first two away matches, at Madrid and San Sebastián. Sample too small to draw a trend from.

Pressing

No verified numerical data for 2026-27. The team profile described by the Catalan press remains that of a mid-to-low block favouring compactness rather than very high pressing — to be treated as an editorial reading rather than a measured fact.

Transitions

Not reliably documented for 2026-27 by the sources consulted. Available factual element: at Anoeta, Espanyol conceded as early as the 4th minute (Barrenetxea) then responded with a quick move finished off by Roberto Fernández before half-time.

StrengthInstitutional and sporting stability restored: new ownership (Alan Pace / Velocity Sports Partners, a deal worth around €130m completed in October 2025), Monchi's arrival as sporting director in May 2026, Manolo González's extension until 30/06/2027 (official club announcement, 26/05/2026), and a transfer window judged a success by the head coach himself.

WeaknessOffensive dependency while waiting for the return of Javi Puado (cruciate ligament), squad depth still being bedded in for several new signings (Hartman and Moscardo not starting, with the head coach citing an adaptation period), and a right-back position that Manolo González has himself made conditional on the available salary margin.

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood

Squad confidence

Sound but dented: after an opening 3-0, two consecutive defeats have brought Espanyol back to three points from nine and prompted a harsh assessment from the head coach on leaving Anoeta. The week nonetheless brought two reasons for optimism: captain Javi Puado's return to full training after 234 days out, and the presentation of Bryan Zaragoza and Andoni Gorosabel, the window's last additions. The new right-back set the tone by saying that “there is a team here to have a good year”. Hosting Sevilla, on Sunday at 21:00 and shown free to air, is the chance to get going again in front of their own crowd.

Coach / players / board relationship

Alignment on show but now under examination. Monchi, who arrived as general sporting director, held his end-of-window press conference on 3 September, at which he had to justify his decisions, explain the club's budgetary limits and confirm his confidence in Manolo González, whom he described in May as “the ideal person to keep building Espanyol”. The Catalan press judges the executive's work convincing, which mechanically shifts the pressure towards the bench. The pathway to the B team is also publicly embraced: Sergio García says he speaks “regularly” with the first-team head coach.

Mood with the supporters

A supportive mood since the change of ownership, with a season-ticket campaign sharply up: 28,863 season-ticket holders and 33,218 socios recorded in July, close to 6,000 more than a year earlier, and several areas of the RCDE Stadium full. Hosting Sevilla, scheduled for Sunday at 21:00 and shown free to air, should confirm that mobilisation. Captain Javi Waldo Puado's return to full training, after eight months out, was the week's most eagerly awaited event for the periquito support. No protest against the team is reported despite the two consecutive defeats.

Pressure on the head coach

Low to moderate but trending upwards. Manolo González has just been given a new contract and has the public backing of the sporting directors and the dressing room, but Espanyol remain on three points from nine after two setbacks. The window Monchi presented, judged effective for €5.55m spent, transfers the demand onto the pitch. The head coach also gets options back with the end of Leandro Cabrera's suspension and Gorosabel's arrival at the right-back position he had asked for.

Club objectives

No official numerical objective could be verified. Andoni Gorosabel did, however, publicly set the order of priorities at his presentation, placing survival above any other ambition and leaving the rest for later. The constraint is budgetary: seventeenth in LaLiga for spending with €5.55m, Espanyol built their squad on loans with purchase options, when direct rivals such as Racing or Deportivo invested four to five times more. In parallel the club continues to get value from La21, with Leo Salazar loaned to Ajax with a purchase option.

Recent internal tensions

No internal tension is reported by the sources consulted. The most delicate subject is captain Javi Puado's trajectory, whose return dates have varied a great deal and who only rejoined the group on 2 September. The second point of attention is budgetary: the club claims an effective window but remains seventeenth in spending, which limits room for manoeuvre in the event of injuries. Monchi's end-of-window press conference on 3 September was precisely the occasion to explain those constraints.

Absences

InjuredJavi Puado — Rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament on 11 Jan 2026, operated on on the 15th. Back in full training on 2 Sep 2026 after 234 days, but not fit for matchday 4. Manolo González hopes to be able to reintegrate him after the international break; no firm date is given, the timelines having already varied a great deal.

InjuredKike García — Hamstring tear; absent from the list of 23 named for Anoeta on 28 Aug 2026. Duration not specified by the club.

BackLeandro Cabrera — Suspension served: he is available again from matchday 4, which reopens the debate over the centre of defence.

BackBryan Zaragoza — On loan from Bayern Munich and officially presented on 3 Sep 2026; he completed his pre-season in Barcelona and is not expected to start against Sevilla.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Racing Santander — RCD Espanyol

AwaySaturday 24 October at 16:15Matchday 10

In 6 days. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says

No preview found for this fixture. The press mostly covers the big games, and usually the day before.

Prediction

EstimateRacing Santander — RCD Espanyol

34 %

1 · Racing Santander

21 %

X · draw

45 %

2 · RCD Espanyol

In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 9 matches played by Racing Santander, 9 matches by RCD Espanyol. Confidence: fair

The match details of at least one of the two teams may be one match behind at football-data.org — the home/away split and the home advantage may depend on it.

The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures

League average. 238 goals scored over 159 team-matches played (19 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.50 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
TeamGoalsRawKept
Racing Santander — attack13 in 9 matches0.960.98
Racing Santander — defence23 in 9 matches1.711.42
RCD Espanyol — attack11 in 9 matches0.820.89
RCD Espanyol — defence12 in 9 matches0.890.93
The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.60 for Racing Santander and 0.60 for RCD Espanyol. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 1.76 goal scored on average by the host against 1.38 by the visitor, over the 45 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.27; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.43, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.11. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
Racing Santander at home: 2.00 pts/match versus 1.00 overall over 4 matches → ×1.120
RCD Espanyol away: 1.00 pts/match versus 0.89 overall over 4 matches → ×1.042
Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
λ_{Racing Santander} = 1.50 × 0.98 × 0.93 × 1.11 × 1.120 = 1.70
λ_{RCD Espanyol} = 1.50 × 0.89 × 1.42 × 1.042 = 1.98
Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 33.7%, draw 21.5%, away win 44.8% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 1-1 (only 8.5%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).

Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.

It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.

What other sources say

No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.

This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Goalkeepers

Marko Dmitrović
Ángel Fortuño
Llorenç Serred
Pol Tristán

Defenders

Omar El Hilali
Unai Núñez
Clemens Riedel
Roger Hinojo
Leandro Cabrera
Vanja Drkušić
Quilindschy Hartman
Pablo Ramón
Rubén Sánchez
José Ángel López

Midfielders

Urko González de Zárate
Edu Expósito
Pol Lozano
Gabriel Moscardo
Rafel Bauzà
Álex Calatrava
Tyrhys Dolan
Javi Hernández
Pere Milla

Forwards

Roberto Fernández
Javi PuadoC
Bryan Zaragoza
Jofre Carreras
Marcos Fernández
Kike García
Adama Timera

This team's current captain could not be confirmed with certainty at the last check — no armband is shown above until the information is reliable.

Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: Base list: fichajes.com (RCD Espanyol 2026/27 plantilla), cross-checked against the official 23-man call-up for Anoeta relayed by La Grada (28/08/2026), the probable line-up published by La Grada (29/08/2026) and FC Bayern's official statement on the loan of Bryan Zaragoza (27/08/2026). Bryan Zaragoza has been added; José Salinas and Miguel Rubio, reported as departing by the fichajes.com transfers page but still present in its squad list, were left out for lack of corroboration..

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss17 Oct 2026

Athletic Madrid, victory at photofinish on the field of Espanyol. Only one peer for the Villarreal after the tris al Napoli

Source: Corriere dello Sport

rss17 Oct 2026

All parties in the highest category of youth. The leader Espanyol and the Barça do not fail

Source: Mundo Deportivo

rss17 Oct 2026

Espanyol - Atlético de Madrid: schedule, where to watch today on TV and the Liga EA Sports party channel

Source: Marca

rss17 Oct 2026

Espanyol - Atlético - 124; A breath... or pressure on the Barça

Source: Marca

rss17 Oct 2026

Espanyol - Osasuna - 124; they want to get out of the edge of the abyss

Source: Marca

rss17 Oct 2026

3-1: Real Madrid dispels doubts to the Espanyol and imposes its gluing on the Di Stéfano

Source: Mundo Deportivo

Result3 Sep 2026

Matchday 4: Espanyol host Sevilla FC on Sunday 6 September 2026 at 21:00 at the RCDE Stadium, a fixture also shown on DAZN and free to air, after two consecutive defeats.

Source: Jornada Perfecta

Club3 Sep 2026

Presentation of Andoni Gorosabel, on loan from Athletic Club with a purchase option: “There is a team here to have a good year,” said the full-back, who said he was ready to play both as a conventional full-back and in a more attacking role and who set survival as the priority above any other ambition. On a possible exercise of the option, he replied: “That will depend on my season. If things go well, I would be delighted.”

Source: Infobae (dépêche EFE)

Institutional3 Sep 2026

Monchi held his end-of-window press conference on 3 September, with several matters on the table: which priorities were actually covered, the club's budgetary limits and confirmation of his confidence in Manolo González, whom he had described in May as “the ideal person to keep building Espanyol”.

Source: La Grada

Injury2 Sep 2026

Captain Javi Puado has returned to training with the group after 234 days out, following his anterior cruciate ligament rupture on 11 January and the operation on 15 January. He is not fit for Sevilla's visit and Manolo González hopes to have him “in a condition to come on with the team” after the international break.

Source: La Grada

Institutional2 Sep 2026

Monchi's first window under scrutiny: Espanyol are the seventeenth biggest spenders in LaLiga, with €5.55m invested on seven signings, €500,000 in income and a net spend of €5.05m. Only Levante (€5.1m), Málaga (€0.3m) and Athletic (€0) spent less, when direct rivals such as Getafe (€19.5m), Racing (€20.5m) and Deportivo (€26m) invested far more; the formula used relies heavily on loans with purchase options.

Source: La Grada

Club2 Sep 2026

Leo Salazar, a 19-year-old winger developed at the club since 2017-18 who has made 44 appearances for around 1,800 minutes with the B team, has been loaned to Ajax with a purchase option in the Dutch club's favour. He will start with Jong Ajax.

Source: La Grada

Club2 Sep 2026

Sergio García, a former player now coaching the B team, set out how the pathway to the first team works before his official debut in Segunda RFEF against SD Logroñés: “We speak regularly. He follows our players closely so he can use them if needed,” he says of Manolo González, while insisting that the La21 youngsters “earn it”.

Source: La Grada

Transfers1 Sep 2026

Monchi's first window as sporting director: seven signings, including Álex Calatrava bought for around €5m from Castellón, and the loans of Bryan Zaragoza (Bayern Munich), Gabriel Moscardo (Paris Saint-Germain), Vanja Drkušić (Zenit) and Quilindschy Hartman (Burnley).

Source: La Grada

Result31 Aug 2026

A 2-1 defeat in San Sebastián against Real Sociedad on matchday 3.

Source: Unánimo Deportes

Other29 Aug 2026

Real Sociedad 2-1 RCD Espanyol at Anoeta on matchday 3: Barrenetxea opened the scoring in the 4th minute, Roberto Fernández equalised before the break, and Óskarsson scored the decisive goal in the second half. Espanyol remain on 3 points from 9.

Source: La Grada

News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.

Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.