A woeful Malaga CF performance ends with defeat to Tenerife

This latest defeat makes it five losses in the opening six games of the season, with the team now sitting in 21st place and with head coach Pablo Guede's job now in question.

The line-up for the game remain unchanged except in defence, where the unfit Juande was swapped for Unai Bustinza.

Malaga, for once, got the game off to a positive start and showed signs of balance, but the team would soon go back to their old ways.

The Blue and Whites were weak in defence, hindered by injuries, which meant that they weren't as solid as previous matches.

This manifested itself in the opening goal of the night when Tenerife took advantage of their opponents' lack of committment to fall back and defend. Winger Waldo skipped past Bustinza, passed back towards Gallego, whose shot skimmed off Javi Jiménez and into the back of the net.

Tenerife went on to dominate the following minutes as the Malaga players' morale slumped. But the Andalusians were quick to get back up to speed and rebalanced the game, though they wouldn't cause much trouble in attack and continued struggling with the hosts' counters.

After non-stop attempts at reaching the Tenerife goal, Malaga were able to level the score on the brink of half-time through a powerful Álex Gallar shot just inside the opposition box.

That allowed Malaga to start the second-half in better shape and they improved during the opening minutes. But the plot twist came with just under a half hour left to play. Bustinza saw a second yellow card for a needless tackle and the Blue and Whites would have to face the challenge of playing with ten men.

Guede proceeded to make a quadruple subsitution as he began to clutch at straws.

The changes were made without any seeming intent of winning the game. The fresh legs introduced by the Argentine coach ran around like headless chickens, trying to preserve the 1-1 scoreline.

To add insult to injury, the Andalusians would concede their second goal with 15 minutes to go through a non-existent penalty that even VAR did not overturn.

The Blue and Whites continued their attempts at equalising again, but they also left too much space behind. Tenerife took advantage of that to score their third and final goal of the night which sent the Andalusians towards 21st place in the league table.

Malaga will next face Villarreal B on 24 September at 6.30pm at La Rosaleda, as the team attempts to break their losing streak and Guede tries to save his job.