The only man who spoke after Valencia’s 5-2 defeat at Barcelona on Saturday was the man who had been there only three days and had nothing to say. Albert Celades had just begun his spell as the club’s 10th manager in five years by suffering the worst defeat since Gary Neville took his team to the same stadium three years earlier and let in seven. He faced the media alone, nothing he could offer of any use or any comfort to anybody; the players did not appear and nor did the president. Three days later there was still no sign. Ahead of the game against Chelsea no Valencia player met the media on Monday night.

If they were trying to feign normality, or avoid more noise, they went about it in a strange way. Saying nothing was the most powerful statement of all. Celades gave what little he could and then left. Three days earlier there had been an actual statement, released as they slipped out of the Camp Nou in silence.

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The statement only deepened the division, a communiqué so misjudged that it seemed to confirm the suspicion that they just don’t get it. “We’ve suffered but those of us who love Valencia have to come together,” it said. “Without fights, without distractions that only hurt us. Es lo que hay. Let’s close ranks and defend Valencia. Without ever looking back.”

Without looking back on that thing you’ve just done, you mean?

Marcelino García Toral had arrived at the club in 2017. Valencia had finished 12th in each of the two previous seasons, lurching through crises, going through six managerial changes in the previous 18 months alone. But under him Valencia had twice finished fourth as well as beating Barcelona to win the Copa del Rey – the club’s first trophy in over a decade. Working alongside him was the new director general, Mateu Alemany, and there was stability at last, a clear plan, success too. And now, three games into the season, Valencia sacked him. Alemany is expected to follow.

Every line of the statement hit fans right between the eyes. They doubted that love, for a start. What, they have long asked, is Peter Lim’s real objective in owning Valencia? When was the last time he was even in the city? The fights and the distractions had been of his making; it was not them hurting Valencia. Nor, they felt, were they the ones causing the division. And as for es lo que hay, that was hard to take. Although it doesn’t translate perfectly, it means something along the lines of “that’s the way it is,” or “it is what it is”. Tough luck, in other words. But it did not need to be this way.

The sacking had long been inevitable, though. Marcelino met the decision with “incredulity and powerlessness” but he could well believe it. He claimed the moment he knew something was wrong was the moment he led Valencia to the Cup win. When he went to Singapore to see the owner, he says, he was congratulated for getting into the Champions League but not for winning the Cup. Valencia’s priority had been a return to Europe, not the Cup. And while success was to be celebrated, his decision to ignore suggestions that he jettison the Cup underlined very different views of how to run the club. Insubordination comes at a cost.

At that point the club was increasingly run by Alemany and Marcelino. The owner had some concerns about how and to whose benefit. At the start of the season results had been poor, even if performances were not always as bad as the stats suggested, and it was Alemany who stood by the manager. They came through the crisis; it appeared they had won more than games. Perhaps, though, the seeds of defeat were sown.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Valencia’s Ezequiel Garay, right, in action here against Barcelona, has criticised the sacking of Marcelino. Photograph: Quality Sport Images/Getty Images

As the captain Dani Parejo put last spring, his words made ironic by hindsight: “With the arrival of Mateu Alemany, with Pablo [Longoria, the sporting director], there is a stability now and the club knows where it is going. It is off the pitch and on the pitch. Now the coaches here are not working with the idea that ‘maybe tomorrow they’ll get rid of me’. And that has its repercussions. One can feel it. That has been seen this year. In other circumstances they could have got rid of the míster. Thanks to Mateu for placing his faith in the coach and we have had the results from that.”

That message became standard in Spain; implicitly, it stated that things had got better when the club’s owner had taken his hands off the reins and let people who know get on with it – which is rarely likely to please an owner with any pride and a heavy investment. When Valencia won the Copa del Rey, it was presented as Alemany’s, Marcelino’s and the players’ success, not Lim’s. In fact, it was often interpreted as arriving despite the owner. The “Marcelino good, Lim bad” narrative – which has continued even more powerfully after the sacking – jarred.

Then this summer the division deepened over plans to strengthen the squad. The potential departure of Rodrigo Moreno and the failure to sign Rafinha or Denis Suárez were particular bones of contention. So, too, the future of Lee Kang-in, the South Korean youth product earmarked as a future star but who rarely featured under Marcelino.

Lim took back control, diminishing the authority of Alemany and Marcelino. The divide got ever more public; one crisis was contained in a meeting in Singapore, but not for long. Marcelino’s words were increasingly provocative; at times he almost appeared to be daring them to sack him.

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Last Wednesday they did. They could not blame results. Valencia’s president, Anil Murthy, talked of the need to respect a supposed club “philosophy” of bringing through youth players – which was the first anyone had heard of that. The players’ position was clear. Like most of them the centre-back Ezequiel Garay sent a message of thanks to Marcelino on social media. In it he said that “whoever took this decision didn’t just drag you down, they dragged down an entire team and all the fans. And I say loud and clear IT’S NOT FAIR.”

Nor has the solution convinced, if any could at this stage. Worse, it feeds doubts that were already there. Gary Neville did not have any coaching experience when Lim called him to take over: he had never been a manager and probably never will be. Neville’s assistant, Pako Ayesterán, took the job next but he had no European experience, either. And nor does Celades.

The new manager ended his debut defeated, forced to manage a crisis not of his making. But it is behind them, not yet. Three days later another huge night, one they had fought for all of last season, and the players’ silence continued. Celades arrived at Stamford Bridge and sat alone before the press once more. There was still not much he could say.