We haven’t really done a loan report for Tottenham players out elsewhere (who’s had the time?) but Alejo Veliz has started his year at Espanyol pretty well! He’s integrated himself into the team and has started each of Espanyol’s first three matches.
Then today he started again up top for Espanyol against Rayo Vallecano and did this in the 90th minute:
Yup, that’s a 90th minute winner for our boy as Espanyol won the match 2-1. It’s a banger of a goal, no doubt, but what’s almost as impressive is that he didn’t manage to scream at his teammate for not squaring the ball to him on the initial break. (He was open, probably would’ve scored there.) Whatever. It was still a great goal and a great moment for Veliz, who hasn’t had that many of them since joining Tottenham from Rosario Central in 2013.
Espanyol are 1-1-2 after four matches, 12th in the table. Heading into today’s match Veliz was second on the team in shots and first in shots on target. He’s had six shots in his opening three matches in La Liga for an xG+xA/90 of 0.58, pretty respectable! And it sounds like he’s going to be an important player for Espanyol this season.