Valencia CF continues to face a left-back dilemma even after renewing their captain, Gayà, for the next four and a half years. He remains one of Spain’s most advanced and influential full-backs on the pitch. The club now has to balance long-term leadership with the pressing need to stabilize the squad’s dynamics, a task that calls for clear planning and timely decisions. There seems to be a gap between the urgency of needed actions and the tools available to deploy them. Responsibility for this disconnect ultimately rests with the club’s management and the technical leadership, but in practice those lines of accountability appear blurred, which only compounds the challenge on the field.
That is the blunt reality, no matter how some try to spin it. Critics have often argued that Valencia CF would perform better with different leadership, but the core issue is not merely a matter of registration or reputation. The concern centers on whether the club has a coherent plan to acquire players and to renew or integrate them, while the current leadership remains relatively quiet as Valencia CF drifts through the middle of the table. The drama, in this view, is that there is a lack of strategic planning and that the coach has to focus on daily training, developing young players, and overseeing contract renewals rather than building a stable, long-term squad.
On the issue of Jesús Vázquez, the club’s stance has been telling: he was identified as a potential loan candidate, but the senior team opted to keep him. The rationale was straightforward—losing a young player could be costly in the short term, and the coach needed every available asset to compete. In a cup fixture, Gayà rested while Jesús Vázquez started, as Lato was required in a different role. Now Lato has emerged as the fifth midfielder in the squad, and he is expected to occupy that position more regularly in the coming weeks.
There are supporters who understand the reasoning and those who question the choice. The midfield configuration, particularly the Lato assignment, has sparked debate. Some feel it normalizes an imbalance and signals that Valencia CF is constantly patching issues rather than addressing them with a clear plan. Lato is not a natural midfielder, and this decision has sparked fresh discussions about how the squad should be shaped. Yet the coach—facing limited options—must adapt and reinvent. This season has not been the first time that a winger has been pushed into a midfield role because other alternatives are scarce, as was the case with Foulquier in Seville.
The broader question then becomes why the club did not release Jesús Vázquez in the first place, and why the technical staff suggested the team had no emergencies two weeks prior when, in reality, the balance of the squad clearly required reinforcement. It took just a few days for the coach to remind everyone that a midfielder and a winger were indeed missing, underscoring that the team cannot ignore gaps simply because they are not immediately visible on the depth chart.
Valencia CF appears to be stuck in a pattern: a long-held mid-table existence, a coach searching for a new trajectory, and a management structure that seems slow to connect strategy with on-pitch results. The current approach suggests a desire for signings and seasoned experience to alter the course. Whether the club will attract the right players and integrate them with the youth pipeline remains to be seen. The question looming over the club is whether this period of gradual change will yield a more balanced squad or whether persistent patchwork will continue to define Valencia’s identity.
Only time will reveal how the club navigates these challenges, but the sense is clear: the next few weeks could prove pivotal for Valencia CF, as they try to convert their potential into consistent performances and climb out of the mid-table haze. The focus now centers on aligning recruitment with a coherent playing style, ensuring that young talents like Jesús Vázquez and others have real pathways to meaningful minutes, and building a squad that can sustain credibility across all competitions. That requires decisive leadership, not just good intentions, and a willingness to make difficult calls when necessary.