Sergio Pellicer: “Coaches have to keep our mouths shut”

Sergio Pellicer returns to the bench after having served his two games of suspension. The coach is prudent in each public statement because federal justice committees are especially harsh with coaches. “Today our opinions have to focus on sports, on the work team. Talk about other things, about VAR … We live in a democracy, but coaches must keep our mouths shut and focus on competition. “The sanctions dictate that we cannot give our opinion freely because right now we cannot.”

System change. “We will look for the best drawing and the best mechanism to face the matches. We cannot get into discussions of lines of 4 or 5, our analysis is above. It depends on the players, the mechanisms, knowing how to handle spaces, a rival. We try in each game to find the best possible mechanisms to achieve victory. We believe in complex systems, depending on the needs of the players and their state of form. We are an open coaching staff and we do a very detailed analysis of each game and depending on the players we have, and we visualize day by day in training. From there we could spend hours and hours talking about technical drawings. When we arrived, our first lineup was 4-3-3, then we changed it to a line of three. And we changed, and now the same thing has happened ”.

How have you lived these two games away from the bench and how have you seen your second, Manolo Sánchez?. “Manolo has done it impeccably. Both he and the rest of the coaching staff. These are situations, it is not the first but I hope it is the last. It looks totally different. Both the Leganés game and the Girona game are different situations. I see him a little calmer within the tension. Seeing it from another perspective makes you value other things and have a little more calm. We continue in this improvement process so that the group feels that humility that we have ”.

Lugo analysis. “We are facing a team that we know that its start was not adequate at the level of results. There was a rapid change of coach, of a coach who had achieved a historic salvation, and then with the change of coach the team has taken a step at a competitive and results level. A very aggressive team that handles the second plays, direct play. He manages the records with the ball, like all teams he has very positive things. It will be a game of attacking against very small spaces and defending in very wide spaces and having patience, which does not mean having a slow game rhythm. It's going to be a very hard-fought match, Lugo makes the rivals very uncomfortable ”.

Yanis has been praised by Nafti, Lugo coach. “You can see the performance of the team and the players. But one thing is what you see on the screen and another is what you see live. It has nothing to do with it and that is reflected in the performance of the players and at the individual level. We know that each game is an evolution and the requirement of what it transmits. Yanis is what we want and it infects us with positive things. But he wouldn't finish saying names. Every game and training is as if it were the last. Then each game we are human and one day we can be more or less successful, we are the ones who run the most, the ones who push the most, the ones who make the most intense effort and Yanis reflects what we want ”.

Balance of the first third of the championship. “The important thing is Lugo's game, we want to continue improving each game. There are situations that we have to improve in various concepts, but I keep the positive. We are self-critical, but I'll stick with the positive, that there is a lot. Evolve and do it in the face of adversity. We always know how to pull ourselves together and it is the way to go. We want to look at the present, not the future. Leganés was an unfair defeat, but we are not results and our analysis is deeper. I see a lot of hunger in the group, I see an identity, an idea. In these last four games I think the team is taking steps forward with a lot of margin. We are happy with the day-to-day work. We see a very committed group since we started the competition with everything that involves such a complicated and even competition. You see the day to day and the individual and collective evolution, and in that aspect I am very happy, because in the end, the coaches live off the players and that is what we focus on, that they improve to compete. From there the competition is a shredder. We face it hungry and to convince the group to have an identity ”.

Escassi, discarded

Sergio Pellicer has ruled out Alberto Escassi for this Friday's game.. The man from Malaga, who had played all the official minutes until half-time in Girona, suffered a bruise on his heel. “We will have everyone available except Hicham and Escassi. We are awaiting its evolution. Let's see how it goes and that we can have it soon. Surely tomorrow will not be.

On the contrary, Matos is fit after recovering from the contracture in his right adductor.. The coach has made it clear that there will be rotations. “We need people with legs and fresh minds. We still have to analyze after here, we also have to assess it with the medical services. We have a sketch, but we are not clear about the names of the players. But the idea is. There are going to be rotations. Possibly players who did not participate on Tuesday will start and hopefully we can give the same performance ”.