PETE JENSON: Greenwood's new club Getafe are the most unloved side in LaLiga

Getafe head coach Jose Bordalas has defended the club’s decision to hand Mason Greenwood a way back into football.

The 21-year-old joined the La Liga side on loan from Manchester United, who suspended him in January 2022 over sex offence charges which were dropped seven months ago.

Greenwood did not making his Getafe debut during last night’s 2-1 defeat top Real Madrid, but Bordelas was still pressed on the club’s decision to sign him.

‘It is a very delicate situation to trivialise that issue,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows what happened and appropriate measures were taken. Everyone knows how it ended, with a non-convictory sentence.

‘He is a footballer of a very high level and arrives at Getafe with enormous enthusiasm.’

With neither the history of some of the older teams in Spain nor the charm of the more colourful ones, Getafe is probably the most unloved club in La Liga.

And it was Getafe who snapped up Manchester United outcast Mason Greenwood on a loan deal on Friday night.

There was some affection for the ‘Blues’ when they reached a Europa League quarter-final against Bayern Munich in 2008 but they have long since stopped been the neutrals’ favourite.

That glorious European run came playing the open, expansive football of Michael Laudrup but now, with uncompromising Jose Bordalas in charge, they are a bruising, no- nonsense outfit set up to frustrate teams and opposing coaches and cling on to top flight status.

Bordalas also had them in Europe in his first spell at the club, before he joined Valencia. He came back last season to save them from the drop and did so averaging 20 fouls a game and 35 per cent possession.

In Bordalas’s first spell Getafe regularly topped the yellow and red card charts, but his style was at least