First team

MACHÍN: 'WE MIGHT BE STRONGER ON PAPER, BUT WE HAVE TO SHOW THAT'

07/11/2018

The Sevilla manager implied that he will put his faith in Promes and Muriel again against Akhisar: 'The normal thing is for the two that came to be playing tomorrow and I'm sure they'll be close to the goal'

Pablo Machín, together with Sergio Escudero, gave his view on Thursday's clash in Turkey in front of the local press and the media who had travelled from Sevilla: 'Every match is difficult and we might be the stronger side on paper. I also believe so, but we have to show that. We hope that there won't be any unforeseen mishaps, because anything can change a game. We're aware of our obligation to win because it would help us to come first, which is our top objective in the group. For that, we need to win tomorrow.'

In terms of the starting eleven, he more or less revealed his options in attack: 'Honestly, even if I wanted to consider using other options, the ones that we could have used are injured. The only alternative is for the other attackers to be sharper or even change the system. You have to use your players cleverly and the circumstances say that it is normal to have injuries throughout the season. It's unfortunate because they're piling up for us in defence, in the middle and now in attack. But we have a competitive enough squad for that, to be able to win these matches. The normal thing is for the two that came to be playing tomorrow and I'm sure they'll be close to the goal.'

With respect to what was said by the president earlier in the day, the manager also spoke about the upcoming transfer window: 'I know that the president is the first person wanting to make the best squad possible, which also goes for Caparrós, the players themselves and our fans. What the market offers us is another matter, because in the summer we carefully decided that we should wait until January to see how we're doing and find something without rushing. We need to continue working in the same way as we have been, beyond the good results that we've been getting. If we chose to make reinforcements before, or now for that matter, it would be something we need and something that would make a real difference and be an improvement in quality from what we already have.'

'The president is the first person wanting to make the best squad possible. If anyone wrrives, they would be an improvement in quality'

With regards to Akhisar, he has a lot of respect for them above all: 'We know that they have casualties, but that happens to a lot of teams including ourselves. It's part of the game, but any team can make things difficult. I'm sure they're going to try to change things from the first match, in which the direction fo the game was decided quite early because we went 1-0 up so early and then there was the penalty that made it 2-0. In football one moment can change a game and let's hope we can compete well and win, whether it's a good game or not.'

In Villanueva de la Serena the pitch was a hándicap, something that is unlikely to be the case tomorrow: 'We never like to make excuses about the pitch, but anyone who saw the match could see that we were in control and on the offence in the first few minutes. As the pitch got worse it was difficult to keep your balance. But we should have shown our superiority and it's the same here. The pitch seems to be in perfect condition and the only thing that we can have against us are their fans, who will definitely be up for it because to go up against a big European side is always a source of motivation.

To finish, he did not reveal which players would be returning to the team on Sunday: 'In football players can become available or unavailable in one or two days, but until we get back to Seville and see how they train, we won't know for sure. It's possible that Gonalons could be ready, but we still can't be certain.'