"Martin Braithwaite has lost everyone's trust". Luis García was so blunt after the player left the team's training session in Marbella without permission on Monday and returned at dawn on Wednesday to force a departure. He has been left alone. No one in the squad or coaching staff understands or approves of his attitude. And as if that were not enough, there have been no offers for him.
In an interview with TV3 in Marbella, Luis García insisted that the Dane had broken "all the internal codes" and described his performance as "a lack of respect" for the institution, his teammates, the coaching staff and the fans. The Asturian coach added that "a player will never be above Espanyol and assured that they will treat him with "severity", despite indicating that "he will not be separated" and will be treated as a footballer "with a contract".
Braithwaite's day to day goes through absolute solitude in the Marbella concentration. After the victory against Las Palmas, the players had a day off yesterday, which he spent alone. This Friday the training has returned and with it normality.
Fran Garagarza, described Tuesday the performance of the Dane as "very serious" and advanced that the application of the disciplinary code was already underway. The Catalan club insists that Braithwaite is an asset to Espanyol and refers to his contract, which runs until June 30, 2025 and has a termination clause of 7.5 million euros. Both this figure and his salary were cut in half by going down to the Second Division.
The fire caused by Martin Braithwaite is not new. In fact, last summer Espanyol experienced a similar situation. Raúl de Tomás did not exercise in preseason with the group as he was, according to the official version, injured. The coach, then Diego Martínez, explained that his situation was a matter of the club.
The attacker ended up at Rayo Vallecano for eight million euros and without being able to play during the first half of the season. Raúl de Tomás, who until then had been a regular in the plans of the absolute Spanish team, was finally left without participating in the World Cup in Qatar.
Without so much controversy and with a more usual script, Espanyol has usually had problems retaining its figures in the offensive field. This same summer he parted ways with Joselu (16 goals in 34 games), who ended up on loan to Real Madrid for half a million and a purchase option of 1.5 million.
The parakeet fans have resignedly assumed another famous goodbye, although they have learned the lesson: Borja Iglesias left Espanyol, where he scored 17 goals, heading to Betis in August 2019 for 28 million and Gerard Moreno, in 2018 and after being the author of 16 goals , was transferred to Villarreal for 20 million.
In any case, and returning to the present, Luis García's team could lose their main goalscoring bastions in a few months. Of his 52 goals in LaLiga 2022-23, Joselu got 16 and Braithwaite, whose future is clearly uncertain, 10. Between the two they signed just half of the team's goals.
