Marcelino has warned of the difficulty of the match and has set the objective of finishing “as high as possible”

Villarreal CF head coach, Marcelino García Toral, has appeared before the media to analyse the preview of the league match against UD Almería, corresponding to Matchday 32 of the 2023/24 LALIGA EA Sports season, with kick-off on Sunday at 2pm CEST, at the Power Horse Stadium.

Players available against UD Almería

“If everything goes normally before the game, Coquelin will be available. The rest of the absentees are the same. Those coming back from injury are continuing their recovery.”

An opponent on the up

“At their home ground they have drawn against teams at the top of the table like Girona, Valencia, Betis and Atlético. It will be a tough match. It took them a while to win their first game, but they did it recently in Las Palmas and they also got a good result in San Sebastián last weekend. We can’t relax because of that. We have to be responsible, consistent and know that the match is a very difficult one. It will require us to be at our best if we want to win it.”

The sporting objective

“The idea is to have a winning mentality for every game. We must go out to win every game. Respect our team, our fans and ourselves. We must fight to be as high up as possible. The game and the results will tell us how far we can go. But right now we’re not thinking about where we’re going to end up. There are 21 points left to play for and we want to get them all. That’s our objective.”

Only a few points to play for to get to Europe

“When we arrived here, the situation was complicated and we had to get out of it. With the work of the players, we saw that their capacity was much better than what they had shown until January. It’s a whole process and it’s influenced by the fact that there were a lot of injured players. Important players were injured, a new coaching staff came in with other ideas. There is an adaptation and then an improvement in performance. But we didn’t plan for this. We set out to compete better and be a more complete team. We are a tough team and we are scoring points. It is very difficult to reach Europe, but our professional obligation is to be as high as possible.”

Mosquera’s future

“We try to create a favourable environment for performance. The fact that he is happy for us is a satisfaction. I don’t know what will happen. It depends on three parties. The club that has the rights, the club and the player. It is the future and there will be time to talk. We are now focused on the day to day sporting matters and the matches that are coming up.”

A demanding match

“Almería are a team that have good players. We all thought they were going to get a lot more points than they have. Sometimes in football, there are things that don’t work collectively and that’s what the league table has shown. Of course, they have deserved better results in many games and perhaps that has generated insecurities and has led to them not showing their performance. We have to be very attentive and defend well. They are quick and have good transitions. They have quality in the final third. Their biggest deficit is conceding goals. That was also a big problem for us. We have to be at our level, respect our opponents and know that it’s going to be a difficult game.”