Valencia in disarray: the huge task that faces Gary Neville

You all know Valencia - the team that not so long ago broke Spanish football’s duopoly, winning two Liga title in three years between 2002 and 2004, making two Champions League finals and lifting the UEFA Cup in the process. Well, you know the name, because the club that wears the same shirts, plays in the same stadium and goes by the same title is a very different one.

That much was obvious in Sunday’s defeat to Sevilla. In Andalusia, Valencia lacked everything that has made them one of Spain’s most captivating clubs over the past 15 years or so. There was no verve, no guts, no identity and no hope. They didn’t even have a full team on the pitch, following the dismissal of Joao Cancelo and Javi Fuego, as defeat to Sevilla spelled the end for Nuno Espirito Santo as Valencia boss, just as it did for Quique Sanchez Flores and Ernesto Valverde before him.

His exit had been rumoured and willed for weeks, with local press revelling in his resignation. Indeed, under Nuno Valencia have become La Liga’s most tediously tragic team much worse off than their league position initially suggests. They have been atrocious, but even by that standard their performance against Sevilla - where they failed to register a single shot on goal, or win a single corner - was the ultimate nadir.

Nuno didn’t even tell his players of his decision to resign before announcing it to the press, with the Valencia squad hearing the news along with everyone else. Phil Neville, assistant manager at the Mestalla since the start of the season, was installed as interim manager and faces the unenviable task of tackling Barcelona on Saturday before big brother Gary takes charge.

"I have spoken with the owner, the president and we are all agreed that Valencia is a project for the present and the future and I don't want that to stop," Nuno told reporters after defeat in Seville. "I want Valencia to return to being one of the biggest clubs in Europe.” They’re certainly a long way short of that measure.

It’s not even 18 months since Peter Lim’s - also a Salford City co-owner alongside the Class of ’92 - takeover saved Valencia from financial oblivion. The black hole, which could have sucked down the club along with €220 million worth of debt and an abandoned stadium project, was avoided, but an identity crisis was not. Valencia haven’t just become a soulless team, but a soulless club too.

At first Lim’s takeover appeared to be nothing but a good thing for Valencia. Qualification for this season’s Champions League should have been a platform for even better things, and yet their decline - both domestically and on the continent - has been dramatic, and political. The Mestalla has become a battleground everywhere but on the pitch, where there has been little sign of any fight.

Nuno was Lim’s ally, with the Singaporean businessman even attempting to talk his coach out of resignation on Sunday. The former goalkeeper prompted something of a tug-of-war over the summer, forcing president Amadeo Salvo and sporting director Francisco Rufete, along with other key figures, out of the club. It left Nuno completely exposed as the only possible scapegoat when things started to go badly wrong this season.

That power struggle hasn’t just been confined to the club’s hierarchy either, with the Valencia dressing room also something of a toxic place this season. Alvaro Negredo has found himself ostracised for much of the campaign after publicly voicing his disgruntlement with Nuno’s style of play. He's not the only one begrudging of the team Valencia have become.

Then there was the sale of Nicolas Otamendi, and Jeremy Mathieu before him, and Juan Bernat, and Jordi Alba, and Roberto Soldado, and Juan Mata, and David Villa and David Silva. Valencia have sanctioned more sales than an Asda on Black Friday over the past five years, and with every outgoing star Jorge Mendes’ grip on the club tightens.

Valencia has become Mendes’ stable, with the Portuguese agent stockpiling players at the Mestalla - where youth players are promoted to the first-team on his say-so. His relationship with Lim has grown so strong the club’s new manager will reportedly be picked by Mendes. He might have picked the last one too, given that Nuno was the super-agent’s first ever client. Agents are widely considered the scourge of clubs everywhere, but at Valencia Mendes’ involvement - control, even - has been actively encouraged. Such outside influence has proved unsettling.

Many speculate that Mendes’ association is to mask Lim’s lack of true financial might - perhaps exposed by the continued dereliction of the empty 61,500-seater Nou Mestalla. The Singaporean once vowed to challenge the established order of the Spanish game, but some question whether he ever had any genuine intention of doing so. While Valencia have spent money, it has been generally offset by revenue generated by player sales.

Meanwhile, the original Mestalla has undergone a makeover, with the crumbling walls given a lick of paint and the fading director’s box seats replaced and upholstered. But it’s all superficial - Valencia is a club in need of a complete rebuild. Over to you, Gary.