Valencia coach Gary Neville says his side have “no excuses” ahead of Thursday’s Copa del Rey quarterfinal second leg at Las Palmas.
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Neville has yet to turn things around at the club, with Valencia win-less in La Liga since his surprise arrival in December a year ago, and so a cup run could be vital to spark things into life.
And they were rewarded with the opener when Andre Gomes burst down the left and his low cross was turned home by Rodrigo.
“Our fans deserved to enjoy a moment like this”, Neville said. “They have been patient with me and the players for the past four or five weeks and we need to give them joy”.
“We want to do something important now”. Goals from Steven N’Zonzi and Vitolo were enough to seal the win in the first leg, however it is Kevin Gameiro who remains Sevilla’s biggest threat in front of goal, with the striker looking for a 14 goal of the season.
Las Palmas exerted more and more pressure as the match wore on, but despite pinning the visitors back in their own half in the later stages, they were unable to find a late equaliser, with Ryan making another strong save to deny Jonathan Viera, and Aythami Artiles headed a golden chance off-target.
“We did all we could, we deserved at least a draw”, Las Palmas defender David Garcia said. “It would have been nice to advance, for us and for the city, but we fought until the end”.
Vicente Iborra opened the scoring from the penalty spot before Juan Munoz added to the lead. It was a case of our mentality, I’ve played in those games myself, where you protect what you have rather than playing your normal game and continue to do what we were doing in the first 60 minutes. “I thought like last week [in the first leg] we probably should have scored two or three goals”.
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The Andalusian club will face Barcelona in the final after it beat Athletic Bilbao in the other semi. The draw for the semifinals will take place on Friday.
