Villarreal manager Javi Calleja underlined the path to take against Barça
Villarreal CF manager Javi Calleja underlined that the time will try and get a victory using all of its strengths against FC Barcelona (Tuesday, 9:30pm CEST) with the hope of moving away from the relegation zone. “It’s a very tough match against the league leaders. We know that it will be complicated to get anything against Barcelona. But we have to go out to try and win, to think that we can do it and even more so, playing in front of a home crowd. We should go out to win and with that attitude, we can’t think about anything else,” he commented.
For the Yellows’ head coach, what is important is looking ahead to the future optimistically: “We need to forget what’s happened before and focus on this match. This match is crucial for us and we must think about what we’ve got to do and not what’s happened before today. We need to be courageous, if we play with fear we’ll regret it. If we’re scared, they will be more comfortable, and if they’re comfortable, it’ll be more complicated. We must press them, make them uncomfortable and be clever with the ball. We must try and make them uncomfortable so you don’t see the best version of them.”
According to Calleja, the fight to get out of the drop zone will be fierce: “It’s all very tight, all the matches are evenly-balanced and everyone is close together. I don’t think anyone will fly away from the relegation zone until the end, so each match will be crucial.”
Calleja also had regrets about the last defeat to Celta: “We’ve been creating chances and scoring goals in recent games. In Vigo, we scored two away goals and we lost, because we did a lot of things badly. We created chances, we got to the opposition goal but we didn’t know how to win. We lost our concentration for half an hour and the match escaped us. We can’t think about that result, we need to continue like we are whatever happens.”
For the coach, the match at Balaídos should be used to learn from. “The team did good things in Vigo, we knew how to play and what to do with the ball. But we didn’t do it in the second half, we got into the area and we made mistakes with the ball. Now Barcelona are coming, and getting the ball of them is nearly impossible, so we should know what to do with the ball when we have it. If we focus only on defending, we’ll definitely lose, so we need to hurt them with the ball and be dangerous whenever we steal it. We need to make them doubt themselves and we need to be clinical,” he finalised.
