Lucas Boye’s late winner proves decisive as our run of good home form comes to an end
We were unlucky to fall to a 1-0 defeat against Elche as our unbeaten run at home this year came to an end courtesy of Lucas Boye's late winner.
Javier Aguirre named Jose Copete alongside Martin Valjent and Antonio Raíllo in a three-man central defence, while Tino Kadewere continued to accompany Vedat Muriqi in leading the line.
The Zimbabwean almost gave us an early lead when he latched onto a through ball, but our forward was unfortunate not to have scored in the 10th minute.
Gumbau was next to have one of the better chances of the first half as the midfielder charged forward and forced Predrag Rajković into a fine save down low.
We would head into the dressing room level come the break, although not before Kang-In Lee saw his strike from a rehearsed free-kick fly just wide of the far post.
We came out the better side after the restart as Edgar Badia had to produce a fine reflex stop to prevent Dani Rodríguez’s acrobatic volley finding the back of the net in the 58th minute.
Rajković was called into action after the hour-mark on various occasions, first denying Lucas Boye at the near post before tipping another Gumbau strike from distance wide.
The visitors opened the scoring in the 88th minute when Boye drifted into the box unmarked from a corner and volleyed into the top corner.
We thought we found a late leveller in the 97th minute when Muriqi poked home from close range as we desperately searched an equaliser, although a VAR review adjudged Maffeo to have committed a foul in the build-up to the goal.
RCD Mallorca: Rajkovic; Pablo Maffeo, Valjent, Raillo, Copete, Jaume Costa (Augustinsson, m.83); Dani Rodríguez (Amath, m.83), Galarreta; Kang In Lee (Antonio Sánchez, m.85); Kadewere (Abdón, m.59) y Muriqi.
Elche CF: Edgar Badia; Palacios, Gonzalo Verdú (Diego González, m.74), Bigas; Carmona (Morente, m.46), Mascarell, Gumbau, Clerc; Fidel (Raúl Guti, m.67), Nteka (Ponce, m.60) y Lucas Boyé.
