Martin Braithwaite has lost everyone's trust. A player will never be above Espanyol”. These words were pronounced by Luis García, the blue and white coach, three days after Martin Braithwaite left the team's concentration in Marbella without permission on Monday and returned at dawn on Wednesday to force a departure from the club. However, those words are already part of an echo that has resounded in Cornellà for a long time, because the extreme situation that has occurred with the Danish striker is not new for Espanyol, which since 2018 has been unable to retain its star strikers.
This same summer, before the frightened Braithwaite, the team's second top scorer last year with 10 goals, gave up, it was Joselu who left through the back door. The Galician striker then had the alibi of signing for Real Madrid, but many criticized an alleged lack of commitment both in the last days of the League and in later days, when he wore the shirt of the Spanish team. Joselu had achieved total identification with the Espanyol fans in just a few months, he scored 16 goals and was the great hope in the fight not to be relegated. His hasty goodbye, in exchange for only 1.5 million euros, was a blow to the stands.
The striker from Silleda was already then heir to a long tradition of abrupt exits after offering a fantastic performance, as was his. In recent years, Espanyol has been able to get their leading strikers right, but not retain them. The one immediately preceding it was Raúl de Tomás, star of the team during his stay and also international for the first time with the blue and white shirt. The man from Madrid came to the rescue of the entity in exchange for 22.5 million euros in January 2019. Two and a half years later he was sold to Rayo Vallecano in exchange for eight million due to the dubious management of Diego Martínez and Domingo Catoira.
De Tomás had arrived to fill the great void left in 2019 by another Galician, Borja Iglesias, who, just after the team qualified for the Europa League, decided to follow the path of Rubi, then the team's coach, and sign for him. Betis. Iglesias left 17 goals and 28 million euros in Cornellà, which few compensated.
Just a year earlier, in 2018, Gerard Moreno had been transferred to Villarreal for 20 million after scoring 16 goals. The man from Santa Perpetua de Moguda, who spent three years in the team, gave the starting signal to this martyrdom that accompanies the club.
Now, Luis García's team can lose half of their goals from last year in a few months. Of the 52 goals in LaLiga 2022-23, Joselu got 16 and Braithwaite, ten. In the event that the Dane does not continue, Espanyol will have to get it right again in their endless search for a lasting nine
