Poor Depor?

Down: Lotina and his players

There was little sympathy for Deportivo La Coruna as the former league champions were relegated from La Liga.

"There's a real lack of investment in the team and the style of play under Lotina has been hard watching at times. If you don't score goals - and they are the lowest scorers in the league - you pay the price."
Terry Gibson Quotes of the week

Miguel Angel Lotina's slipped into Segunda Division at the weekend in the final relegation spot, ending a 20-year stint in Spanish football's top flight.

It was a far cry from 12 years ago when they won the league title and took on Europe's best in the Champions League, led by the likes of Juan Carlos Valeron, Djalminha and Roy Makaay.

To add insult to injury for the Riazor side, they are the first side since the top division switched to 20 teams to be relegated with more than 40 points.

And on the final day, when they needed to beat Valencia to stay up, they created an amazing 28 shots on goal.

It may sound like a sorry tale to end the season with, but Revista's Terry Gibson was not sad to see the back of a side that have also played out eight goalless draws in their 38 La Liga games this year.

"I'm not sympathetic with them," he said. "They've been a team and a club in decline for a number of years now.

"You have to go back to the beginning of the century when they won the league and had a great spell in the Champions League.

Long gone

"But those players are long gone now and it's been a long time since they spent decent money - I think (Andres) Guardado a couple of years ago they spent real money on.

"So there's a real lack of investment in the team and the style of play under Lotina has been hard watching at times. If you don't score goals - and they are the lowest scorers in the league - you pay the price."

Graham Hunter was a little more understanding and admitted he still hankers for the days of Valeron - the "Spanish Zinedine Zidane" - and coach Javier Irureta.

He also paid tribute to the Depor fans that have stuck with the club throughout it's gradual slide down the standings.

They had 35,000 for the decisive game with one-time trophy rivals Valencia on Saturday and Guillem Balague believes that in itself sums up their remarkable success - and indeed their sorry decline.

"It's a huge relegation," he said. "Only four teams have been in the first division for more consecutive seasons - it's like Spurs going down in a way.

"But this is a lesson in life and football; they based their success on debts, this is a city of 125,000 and although it was wonderful to see what trhey did and they way they did it, it was just unsustainable.

"They had to get loan players in and players that they didn't believe in, they started making mistakes because it's run like a family. Deportivo basically had to go."