What's behind Valencia CF success?

What is the reason for their success? They haven't been second in the league for three years, and it's good to see them up there. I am convinced they will compete in the top four come May.

But they have conceded seven goals in the last four games, and Marcelino is really worried, because they don't control games as much as they should.

He's similar to Rafa Benitez in many ways; his game is to absorb pressure and to use the pace of the players up front to counter attack. At the moment they've been very efficient at that. Rodrigo has six goals in six games; Guedes is doing a great job linking up and in wide positions; Neto saved a penalty that could have made it 2-1 on Sunday in the 6-3 win over Betis; Murillo and Kondogbia are playing well. Everything is working.

And everything is working because 90 per cent of the decisions made in the summer have been the right ones; it's this weird thing with football clubs, you never know how things work out, but in this case it has worked out.

Quique Setien was the preferred choice as the coach for Jose Ramon Alexanko, the director of football at Valencia. But Mateu Alemany, the CEO, decided to go against it and went for Marcelino. They got rid of 20 players in the summer, some of whom were bad apples in the squad, and some veterans who didn't want to work hard.

Jorge Mendes still helped with a few signings, but instead of Mendes imposing his players on Valencia - players who were not needed, as he had in the past - he helped with players who were really needed, especially Guedes. The squad was made with the club in mind first.

Faith in Michel still

Malaga have only earned one point this season. Mario Husillos, the new director of football, insisted in midweek that whatever happened against Leganes, manager Michel was going to stay. They lost 2-0.

Interestingly, Abdullah Al Thani, the owner of Malaga, eventually apologised to Michel, having had a go at him for the signings he wanted, which he didn't consider relevant and blocked. He does think very highly of him and realises the fans are with him, and everybody knows the problem is the lack of quality in the players.

As soon as they concede a goal, heads go down. Both Al Thani and Husillos believe Michel can turn this around, and they realise now this is a battle not to be relegated. They want to keep Michel in charge as it stands.