Pedri’s strike gave the yellows their first victory of the campaign. Las Palmas were superior to Sporting and gave themselves some breathing space in the league table. Compared to their last league outing, UD Las Palmas made seven changes to their starting line-up this evening against Sporting de Gijón. De la Bella, Drolé, Narváez, Aythami Artiles, Srnic, Fabio and Pedri were all drafted in by manager Pepe Mel.
The game began in haphazard fashion with errors by both teams. Neither side was capable of slowing the game down. They were in a hurry to get the ball into their opponents’ box, and the game suffered for it. Drolé (min. 20) went on one of his typical galloping runs, but after cutting inside his shot was turned away. This was followed a minute later by an effort from Molinero for Sporting.
With Pedri, Álvaro Lemos and Srnic in the ascendency, Las Palmas looked dangerous down the right hand side. The Spanish international youth player moved between the lines trying to pull the away side’s centre backs out of position. It was no easy job, and both defences managed to hold the upper hand during the first half. Half time came with a nil-nil scoreline.
In the second half, Las Palmas began to play more in their opponent’s half, forcing Sporting’s defenders into mistakes as they looked to play out of defence. They began to take control of the match. A header by Narváez (min. 52) was blocked by a well-positioned Mariño. In the 58th minute, Las Palmas found themselves in a position similar to Rubén Castro’s second goal against Racing, but on this occasion Drolé was unable to play the telling pass through to Narváez. The Columbian forward then limped off the pitch with a knock, and was replaced by youth player Juan Fernández.
Then in the 62nd minute Pedri hit a tremendous drive into the back of the net for his first goal for Las Palmas to put his side deservedly ahead. The home side nearly scored a second goal in the 75th minute, but Kirian mis-hit his shot and the ball flew over the crossbar.
Sporting pushed forward in the closing stages, but Las Palmas stood firm in defence to protect their 1-0 lead and pick up three extremely important points. A great stop by Josep in the last minute of added time gave the home side even more reason to savour their triumph.
