With the La Liga season finished for 2017-18, clubs are already making moves to secure their transfers targets, ahead of the new campaign.
With gossip columns already filling up on who is going where, Sevilla moved quickly to make their first signing of the summer – a new manager in the form of Pablo Machin.
He leaves Girona, following a excellent first season in the top flight for both club and manager in 2017-18.
Machin established the Catalan side in La Liga, pushing for a Europa League spot at one stage, before eventually finishing in a respectable 10th place.
Whilst the club benefited from their new partnership with Manchester City, the side firmly had the marks of Machin.
After guiding them up from the Segunda, he kept faith with a number of the players who had secured promotion – including Portu, Borja Garcia and Alex Granell, who all stepped up another level.
He also brought in Cristhian Stuani from Middlesbrough, in potentially the best piece of La Liga business in 2017-18.
The Uruguayan striker has netted 21 goals in 2017-18, bettered only by four other players in the division.
Stuani was the efficient front man that Machin wanted, the gun to fire when his pragmatic side had successfully shut out the opposition.
His move to Sevilla represents a step up, in theory, for Machin, but in reality he faces a difficult task at one of La Liga’s most unstable clubs.
The Andalusian club have gone through three managers in their past two seasons, and all bigger names than Machin, developing a reputation as trigger happy.
As Jorge Sampaoli was unable to recreate the success of the Unai Emery era, he was labelled as too much of a disciplinarian.
He was then replaced by Eduardo Berizzo, who much like Machin had over achieved at a smaller club, Celta Vigo.
The Argentine boss was viewed as more progressive in his tactics than Sampaoli, however as results failed to live up to expectation, he was accused of being to soft on players and lacking the personality to manage a club in the mould of Sevilla.
The Vincenzo Montella experiment for the latter half of 2017-18, aside from beating Manchester United int the Champions League, failed, as the club scrambled to a 7th place finish.
The message for Machin is clear, time will be short and expectation will be high, despite needing both ingredients at Girona, and the pressure has already begun.
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