Gracia analyses each half of tonight’s game: “In the first 45 minutes, despite the rival’s few goal opportunities, they took the lead and took advantage of our indecision to pile the pressure on them, there was too much distance between lines and we lost possession and initiative of play.  However despite this, we did generate a number of clear chances to score.
 
“In the second half we also had opportunities for goals and could have reaped the rewards from the strong attacking display we maintained.  However, as we knew beforehand, we were up against a strong rival tonight and they deserved to win,” continues the coach.
 
This is the Blue and Whites’ first and only defeat of the pre-season so far: “It’s never good to lose a game, but we’re looking on the bright side.  I would have preferred to continue with our good run of results as I don’t believe they would weaken us as a team or lead to complacency.”
 
Javi Gracia selected the same line-up tonight as he did for the match against Newcastle, and comments he hasn’t yet decided the line-up for the first League game of the season against Athletic Club: “It will probably be similar, but I’ve not made a final decision yet.  I like to be fair with the work the players do, or at least try to, and each day I want to see how they are progressing and select the right starting-11 to enable us to generate the most scoring opportunities we can in every match.”