Following a disastrous couple of seasons in which the Yellow Submarine appeared for all the world to be sinking without trace, 2013/14 was the year in which Villarreal surprised everybody by coming victoriously back up for air. After a sobering season in the Segunda División, manager Marcelino García Toral led Villarreal back into the Europa League with a sixth place finish, though the gap between the title challengers and 'the rest' remained painfully evident as they finished 28 points behind the top three. It was a season not without its low points - a fine for a tear gas canister being thrown onto the pitch mid-game and the Dani Alves banana-throwing incident come to mind - but overall, it was a year with plenty of promise ahead of the new season.
Villarreal have had a fairly productive transfer window so far, having added a mixture of youth and experience to their ranks ahead of a long campaign. Last season's no.1 Sergio Asenjo has joined permanently from Atlético Madrid as he looks to make good on his early potential, when he was touted by many as the next Iker Casillas. The 25-year-old was on good form last season, keeping nine clean sheets as his side finished with the second-best defensive record outside the top four. However, this solidity at the back could be put down in part to the defensive work of Mateo Musacchio, the young Argentina defender who is rumoured to be in talks with Tottenham Hotspur. Despite a rumoured transfer fee of around £18million, he would be a difficult man to replace with the new season only two weeks away.
Another exciting foray into the transfer market has been the capture of Musacchio's compatriot Luciano Vietto, a young forward who has been likened to Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero since being given his professional debut by Diego Simeone three years ago. Despite being played out of position by a succession of failing managers at the troubled Racing Club, Vietto has flourished recently and can score with both feet as well as his head. With Giovani dos Santos and last season's top scorer Ikechukwu Uche, Vietto can fill the shoes of departed French forward Jérémy Perbet in a dynamic forward line. Serbian full back Antonio Rukavina will add some experience to the back line, while Jonathan dos Santos and Javi Espinosa are both full of potential in the centre of the park. Though Jonathan Pereira and Javier Aquino, who both featured heavily in the first team last season, have gone out on loan to Rayo Vallecano, Perbet is the only first team player to have been lost permanently so far this summer.
Heading the assist charts with eight in the league and a further eleven goals, former Tottenham man dos Santos grabbed the headlines for Villarreal last season, and rightly so. The Mexico international was electric all season, creating around one and a half chances for teammates in each appearance despite playing the entire 90 minutes in less than half of his appearances.
Uche's haul of fourteen goals was important but for all their attacking brilliance and the defensive steel of Musacchio and Mario, midfield lynchpin Bruno is the man who keeps them ticking and the 30-year-old will need another solid season if his side are to push on and progress. Having spent his entire senior career at the club, Bruno bleeds yellow and he could well spend the rest of his footballing years at El Madrigal. Tough in the tackle and tidy with a pass, the midfielder has improved his goalscoring in each of the last three seasons and contributed six to the cause last term - this is testament to the way Villarreal have learned to spread goals and assists around the squad, with fourteen seperate scorers in the league last year, five of whom finished with four or more. Despite having a fairly small squad, almost a quarter of their goals came from set pieces - with 14 out of their 60 goals coming from dead ball situations, Villarreal can mix things up when they need to get themselves on the scoresheet.
If there is one lesson Marcelino García Toral must learn from last season, it is that he needs to be able to sustain his team's performance throughout the season, especially in the post-Christmas period. In the fifteen games from the end of January to the end of April, they stuttered, losing eight and winning just four - considering they suffered defeat only thirteen times in the entire season, this patch of dodgy form cost them dear, though in the end they were some way adrift of both the Champions League places and the sides behind them outside of Europe.
In terms of tactics, Villarreal stuck mainly to a standard 4-4-2 last season but mixed it up in places to a more modern 4-2-3-1 with dos Santos usually the man to drop back into a midfield attacking trio. With an abundance of pace all over the pitch, Marcelino favoured a heavily counter-attacking style and little is likely to change this season. Dos Santos' runs are vital as he provides the main outlet for deeper players such as Bruno and Cani to pick out once any danger has been cleared up at the back. A high-tempo, fast-breaking approach means that their passing and possession stats are no better than average but when they do have the ball, they make good use of it with an average of closing on nine chances created each game and they do not crumble against the big boys, scoring eight goals in their six games against last year's top three.
In 2014-15, the last ten fixtures of the season could be crucial - Villarreal play five games against sides inside last year's top eight, but matches against relegation fodder Elche, Cordoba and Getafe could provide a welcome boost in morale and, more importantly, goal difference. If things don't go so well, these games could also prove the difference between a mid-table finish and a relegation scrap. European competition has proved the undoing of many good teams in recent years; after all, they were in the Champions League when they were relegated in 2011-12. La Submarino Amarillo should be good enough to avoid another similar catastrophe this time around, but with only one Champions League spot realistically up for grabs, a top-six finish should be the aim again.