Making his first club start since Rangers defeated Partick Thistle in the Scottish Cup all the way back in February, maybe it should not have come as much of a surprise that Ianis Hagi’s full debut for Deportivo Alaves passed by without much incident.
The Romania international, after a couple of cameos off the bench against Valencia and Rayo Vallecano, was included in the Alaves XI for the very first time when Athletic Bilbao came to town over the weekend.
But, while his tally of two ‘key passes’ were still the joint-most of any Alaves player in a disappointing 2-0 home defeat, the conclusions put forward by the Spanish press seem to suggest that a place back among the substitutes could be beckoning for Ianis Hagi once again (WhoScored).
“The Ianis Hagi experiment did not leave anyone happy,” reads AS’s post-match review. “It would be normal for him to fall out of the starting XI.”
Rangers loanee Ianis Hagi struggles on Alaves debut
Luis Garcia Plaza, the Alaves coach, knows that patience will be a virtue with Hagi; the playmaker barely kicking a ball over the last year-and-a-half at Rangers following a serious knee injury.
And while the slower, more technical Spanish game should suit a player who offsets a lack of pace with his piercing, two-footed guile, those hoping to see Hagi to explode out of the blocks – while making his first start in seven months for a new club in a new league – were maybe a little guilty of expecting too much too soon.
“He has talent and quality,” Plaza tells AS. “(He can bring) confidence and joy. But he was a little lost and couldn’t quite find (striker) Kike Garcia in the attack.
“He started out effervescent but his performance dipped, and he ended up being replaced.”
‘He was a little lost’
Alaves travel to a Celta Vigo outfit reeling from four defeats in their first six games under Rafa Benitez on Thursday night. Against a side who collapsed against Barcelona – conceding three goals in the final 10 minutes on Saturday – Hagi’s defence-splitting qualities could yet prove the difference between success or failure in Balaidos.
