Bernd Schuster was left delighted with Malaga’s convincing performance at home to Rayo Vallecano.
The Costa del Sol outfit ran out 5-0 winners at La Rosaleda, thanks to a Mounir El Hamdaoui hat-trick and goals from Eliseu and Francisco Portillo.
“The team’s impressive performance during the first three matches of the season was important, but when the results don’t match the game play, it’s never easy,” mused Schuster in reference to the team’s one point gained from matches with Valencia, Barcelona and Sevilla.
“What we were lacking was exactly what I’ve seen here tonight; a fantastic home win and five great goals.
“Every one of us was hoping for a game like this, we’ve all been working extremely hard and I think the team is now completely ready.
“We’ve gone a step further tonight. Although we need to improve on our finishing touches, particularly in the last 30 metres, we scored some excellent goals here tonight.
“A victory like this gives the team a lot of motivation, as we’ve still got a lot of factors to improve on.
“We’ve had some tough times, things have been difficult, but we’ll always come up against strong rivals and it’s the small details that decide the winner.
“We worked very hard in the first half and I think we were also very lucky. Rayo are a difficult team to beat, they have strong combinative play and are often hard to crack.”
El Hamdaoui’s hat-trick was also his first goals for his new team.
“I couldn’t ask for anything more, he scored three goals and also created numerous other chances.
“He’s a quality player who is going to support the team a great deal, he always delivers, moves well around the pitch and controls the ball with ease.
“I’m really happy for him, as it wasn’t easy, but he was a big part of our victory this evening.”