Pablo Machín on the bench at the Bernabéu

First team

MACHÍN: 'WE HAVE TO ADMIT THEY WERE BETTER THAN US IN THE SECOND HALF'

19/01/2019

'After the 80th minute we weren't able to react against what was probably the best performance Madrid have put in recently,' stated the coach

Sevilla FC's manager, Pablo Machín, attended the club's official media to analyse the defeat against Real Madrid: 'We competed pretty well in the first half, Madrid pushed from the start but we had our chances as well. We have to accept they were better than us in the second half, they made things hard for us in defence. We were solid and their chances were not very clear. We didn't have enough energy to get the chances we needed. We couldn't have done much more to avoid Casemiro's goal. After the 80th minute, we weren't able to react against what was probably the best performance Madrid have put in recently.'

The defeat means that, for yet another season, Sevilla have failed to pick up a point at the Santiago Bernabéu: 'Every opportunity is a good one, you always have a chance to pick up points or win. If we don't fix ourselves on the scoreboard, which was more inflated that it should have been, we were in the game for 80 minutes. In the second half we didn't have the chances to get the goal. All the defensive work comes back to haunt us in attack as it takes up a lot of energy. Madrid deserved the win.'

Ahead of the next cup game, against FC Barcelona at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán, the manager said 'we need our players to recover, we're off the back of a run of hard fixtures. Barcelona are always favourites. We have to recover, physically and mentally, we have to compete against Barcelona in front of our fans.'