Imanol: “Merino did not go with the National Team because of everything he is giving to Real”

The coach of Real Sociedad, Imanol Alguacil, valued this Friday the work of Mikel Merino, who does not train due to a toe injury, and assured that If the Navarrese midfielder has not been in the last call with Spain, it is “because of everything he is giving to Real”.

“He’s annoyed because he knows it’s not the best way to compete. If he hasn’t been to the national team it’s because of how he’s been playing and because of everything he’s done with Real, since any another player would have stopped to recover and not play undercover, in pain and unable to train, even if he doesn’t say so”highlighted the Gipuzkoan coach in a meeting with the press in Zubieta.

Sheriff prepared this Friday the game against Espanyol that has the doubt of Raúl de Tomás for this day and warned of the danger of a Catalan team that has sufficient arguments to compete without its best man. “Espanyol is not just Raúl de Tomás because they have very good players in all their lines. They beat us in the first round, although I think we didn’t deserve to lose and we hope to beat them on Monday,” Alguacil said.

The fact of now playing a single game every seven days increases the chances of achieving the European objective since, as he recalled, when he has had a “clean” week the team has responded, although that does not mean that he will win “all the remaining games”, but it does mean that the players will arrive “more fresh and prepared”.

Sheriff ruled out Carlos Fernández and Nacho Monreal for this Monday’s match, despite the fact that both have carried out joint training with the group and have been working for days, and assured that the commitment against Espanyol is “far” from them, for which Adnan Januzaj is also absent due to suspension and the injured Mikel Oyarzabal and Ander Barrenetxea.

The bad moment of Alex Isak, eliminated in the World Cup playoff with Sweden and with very few goals this season, was also the object of reflection by Alguacil, who He hopes that his striker is “annoyed and hurt” because he did not start him in the last match in Sevillesince he would not understand “that a player does not get angry when he does not play”.