Gaizka Garitano has conceded that Eibar’s next three matches, beginning with Granada on Saturday, will effectively decide their La Liga fate.
A run of eight consecutive defeats have taken the Basques from the comforts of mid-table to a relegation dogfight with the business part of the season fast approaching, and the Coach is under no illusions as to the predicament his side find themselves in.
“The competitive level of the team is still good,” he said at a Press conference.
“We’re competing every game until the end and we’ve been close to securing points. We won’t say we’ve been good because it’d be a lie, but we haven’t been so bad.
“We’re close to being back at our best. It’s important to take a step forward and regain the freshness we previously had in attack.
“The dynamic isn’t good [at the moment], but before [this slump] we were drawing games at around the same rate as [we’re losing] now.
“The next three games will give us an idea of how the rest of the season will go. If the results go our way, we’ll be much calmer.
“[Granada under Abel Resino] have been playing with two strikers in a 4-2-3-1 [formation]. They move the ball from defence more than they did before and are more combinative.
“They’re a very physical and competitive side, but they’re also struggling to score goals.
“We couldn’t sustain the great first round of the season we had and it’s important to get out of this situation as soon as possible.
“When we started the season, we’d have taken 27 points at this point and knew we were going to play in finals like our remaining matches.”
