Vila-real (Castellón, Spain), Aug 11 (EFE).- Villarreal’s coach, Quique Setién, wanted to downplay the poor results achieved by his team during the preseason and assured that “it has nothing to do with the League “, whose first matchday they face this Sunday at La Cerámica against Betis.
“The pre-seasons are for what they are. There are people who give importance to the results. It is true that winning always gives more confidence, but it has nothing to do with the reality of LaLiga and the competition,” he explained.
“The team has suffered casualties and new players have arrived, they have risen from the subsidiary and there have been injuries. The preseason is to get in shape, see things and remember important things that we need to improve. It helps me to make an assessment and analyze things. I prefer to make mistakes in preseason so that the players identify with those things that you are proposing”, he added.
Asked if this season he has a lower quality squad than last year, after the transfer this summer of important players such as Pau Torres, Samu Chukwueze or Nicolas Jackson, the coach assured that he prefers not to make comparisons.
“Last year is over. Many players gave us an extraordinary performance and left. Now different players have arrived and we are trying to get them to incorporate registers, mechanisms and generate that confidence that will make them achieve the performance we expect. Some players will not reach his performance for a few weeks, but we have a very good team and we face the championship with the maximum guarantees”, he stressed.
Regarding the match against Betis, he assured that it will be very competitive. “We have seen the performances of Betis in the preseason. We have already seen the problems that it raised for us on matchday 25. It is a well-worked team with high-quality players. They will surely compromise us at times, but we can hurt them if we are well with and without the ball and I hope that we can resolve the game in our favour, despite the fact that we are going to encounter many difficulties”, he analyzed.
“The beginnings are always uncertain because you don’t know how to really measure yourself in comparison to the others and win a game that you don’t deserve or vice versa and that this gives you a wrong signal of what the championship is going to be. We don’t want to be a team that wins a week yes and no another. I would like my team to give a feeling of stability in general. As the championship progresses we will see streaks and there will be periods that cost us more and others in which there will be more lucidity and high inspiration”, he continued.
“The season is very long and there is an obvious potential for some teams compared to the rest with lower budgets or their squads are a little weaker in terms of football, but these are only theories. To beat these teams you have to work a lot. These teams they work better every day and offer a greater point of competitiveness to the category. It is increasingly difficult to beat them”, he concluded. EFE
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