Unai Emery has underlined the importance of being clinical in the vital moments in order to decide games for his team
Villarreal CF head coach Unai Emery appeared remotely before the media to analyse the upcoming LaLiga meeting with Elche, that will take place at the Estadio Martínez Valero (Saturday, 6:30pm CET)
How fitness might affect the starting eleven
“We have to evaluate how the players are doing physically before we make a decision as to which eleven will line up against Elche CF. I don’t know if there will be many changes, but the next few hours are going to be important, so we can evaluate which players are available out of those who have recently returned from injury, and those who put in so much effort in Valencia the other day.”
A motivated opponent who demand so much of themselves
“When they played us in the reverse fixture, they were defensively solid. We’re expecting the best of Elche. They’re on a bit of a bad run, and so they will be determined and extremely motivated to put that right”.
Three points to help us to be ambitious
“We go into each game with the aim of climbing up the table, and picking up three points from this match would allow us to keep on challenging. We have to focus on improving our play, and not using injuries as excuses, but winning games with the resources that we have and finding aspects to our game that give us a balance and allow us to perform well collectively.”
Forgetting about the cup defeat and growing in LaLiga
‘Now we have to concentrate on LaLiga, in which we’re doing well, but we can also improve. Against Elche, we have the chance to correct those fine margins that are costing us, causing us to draw games more often than we’d like. The team play the way they do to try and control games, so we can take them where we want to. We need to make that extra step so we can control the game that bit more, which will allow us to be more efficient up front.”
The strengths of Elche CF
“They really need to win, and they’re playing at home. On our pitch, they decided to play deeper than usual, which surprised us. I’m not sure if we’re going to see such a defensive Elche this time, or one with more initiative. They’re a team that are capable of dominating, whose strikers offer plenty of options and whose midfield is important to the way they play. They’re a very competitive team and we’re expecting to face the very best of them.”
Being threatening in attack, without losing dominance of the ball or defensive security
“Through controlling possession, we want to take this game away from our opponents and kill it off. We need to be clinical in the final third, better with our finishing. Finding more forward threat and verticality will help us win games, but we have to keep controlling possession and keeping our shape, because that is what has made us so strong up to this point.”
