Victory against Athletic
“It’s clear that achieving victory was one of our priorities. Of course, it was tough. We’ve now got two weeks to stay calm and continue working hard. I think there are many factors we need to improve on, and others to strengthen. We’ll carry on training day to day.”
Clean sheet
“To boost our confidence in defence, it’s important to maintain a clean sheet in matches. It’s one of our objectives. We’re paying very dearly for our rivals’ approaches. This is one of the things we must improve on. The entire squad plays a part in those goals.”
Versatility
“They are circumstantial moments. We have a good quantity of defenders. I’ve always said that I’ll try to do my best in whichever position the coach plays me in. If I have to be a central defender then great, but my position is a midfielder.”
Performance at the start of LaLiga
“I think it’s that the coach is trying to find a way for the team to affront the matches in the best way possible. Indeed, it’s not been the start to the competition we’d hoped. He’s a new coach, new ideas, and there are new players with different characteristics. They need to adapt and we need to adapt with them. This is a process. It’s tough, but we’ll keep working hard. I think that during hard times, the work of the team is absolutely non-negotiable, we always try to stay united. Becoming a team with a solid defence, which is what we’re lacking, will give us confidence. Like last year, we got off to a bad start, but little by little we became stronger and grew more confident to be able to win games.”
League break
“It’s come at a good time as the team needs to keep working on aspects the coach believes we’re lacking in. On the other hand, it’s not so great as we lose a lot of players due to international commitments. There are both positive and negative aspects, but we’ll focus on the positives and work hard.”
