10 Football Teams That Under-Performed In 2019/20
5. Espanyol
Realistically, Espanyol were doomed when their recruitment could not match their greed in the transfer market.
Having achieved a brilliant 7th placed finish in the previous season, they just could not resist a big offer for key player Borja Iglesias, and subsequently failed to replace him.
Espanyol finished bottom of the table and a whopping 12 points away from safety. Lei Wu and Facundo Ferreyra scored fewer goals combined (16) than Iglesias had managed in his only season at the club (20), and overall the squad scored 21 fewer league goals.
The Catalan club never even looked remotely like they could stay up. From game 8 onwards they did not climb above 19th in the table.
In some contrast they actually enjoyed a positive Europa League campaign, topping their group before losing 6-3 on aggregate to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Round of 32.
It seems that Espanyol just could not handle playing in so many games in which much further travel and micro-managing fitness levels were necessary.
This will only be the second season in almost a century without top-flight football, so Espanyol will be hoping to bounce back at the first time of asking.
They should probably replace their defence first, though.