First team

ÓSCAR ARIAS: "WE HOPE THAT WITH THE CHANGE OF MANAGER WE'LL BE ABLE TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE RUN"

12/01/2018
The Director of Football said that poor form of some players "has more to do with general performance" and hoped that problems will be solved when Vicenzo Montella "is able to incorporate his ideas"

Óscar Arias, like Chairman José Castro took the opportunity to evaluate Sevilla's first-half of the season at the presentation of Guilherme Arana - stressing that the team is alive on all fronts but with room for improvement. "The feeling we have is that that we definitely haven't hit the ground running from the start. I think we have a squad filled with options, players with a lot of potential but things haven't been working. Eduardo had a very fixed philosophy that has worked very well for him when he was in Chile and at Celta but it didn't work for us. The team had entered into a period where it wasn't able to dictate the rhythm and the style of play that the board wanted. Now with the change in managers we hope we'll be able to straighten out the run, improve our game and give better sensations - on both individual levels and in a collective form we need to achieve with new incorporations. It's a change of model and a change in ideas from what we were working with under Berizzo. It requires time for Vincenzo to develop his own ideas and for the team to develop the potential it has", he said. 

"I think it's a question of general performance...Eduardo came in with a philosophy that in the end didn't work out and that poor performance has meant that the players are in worse form than they could be. The majority of players are below their level", he added.

"We have a squad with a lot of options but things have not worked"

Turning to the winter transfer market is a step in the right direction for improvement, however, Arias explained that it is nothing new: "for all the years that I have been here at Sevilla, the club has always signed someone in this market. We will have undoubtedly made mistakes, no one here is completely perfect, but I don't feel that there is a serious error in planning...There are things that we have been able to improve upon. But last year in January, just like previous years before that, several new players arrived at the team...It is inherent in the football world". 

"We are working hard to look for alternatives that will give us solutions"

Asked about names, the Director of football didn't want to focus on anyone in particular: "Entering into speculations about possible signings does not seem right to me. We are working to look for alternatives that will give us solutions and help the team. We are in that dynamic, we are considering several possibilities, not all are going to be feasible, but looking beyond the names and what comes out in the press, we are focusing on work and when management decisions are made, you will know". 

About the criticism he has received throughout the season, Arias admitted that "when the opportunity presented itself to be the Director of Football for Sevilla, my wife asked me: 'are you sure that's what you want to do?' I told her it's a unique opportunity and I couldn't say no. She said: 'but you know what circumstance you come in to, taking over from Monchi and with a winning Sevilla side"... I think there's a climate of comparison with these things, which has meant that everything is compared to what was done before... but that would have happened to me just like it would have happened to anyone who worked differently to Monchi... Situations like the ones we're experiencing now - I've been here five years and I've never seen the kinds of comments that I do at the moment. Sometimes these issues that aren't real bounce off me, sometimes it hurts a bit, it wears you down but I understand what comes with the job".