Malaga right-back Jesus Gamez has criticised his side’s performance in the 1-0 home defeat to Osasuna last weekend.
The 28-year-old, who has spent his entire professional career with the Costa del Sol club, believes Los Blanquiazules lacked the fight of recent weeks that saw them go on a five-game unbeaten run.
“We must not lower our competitiveness. We lacked our usual aggression and that must not be allowed to happen again,” Gamez told reporters, although he conceded that the current Malaga side are still a team in the making.
“We’ve come off a good run where we have been playing well and we’d like to have taken three points off Osasuna. It was a slip-up and we must use it to improve in the next few games.
“However, there are some players who have had virtually no minutes on the pitch. Hopefully we can use them all, which means we will then be playing at our highest level.
“Little by little we are taking the boss’s ideas on board but that takes time, both for the Coach and the team,” he explained.
Malaga-born Gamez believes the forthcoming international break will be a good time to move forward following the club’s period of reconstruction under Bernd Schuster.
“We must use it to work hard, maintain our intensity, clear our minds after the last game and go to the Santiago Bernabeu against Real Madrid next week eager and strong.
“Our objective then will be to reach a position in the table where we will be able to fight for something,” declared Gamez, who has still not given up hope of a call-up to Vicente del Bosque’s national team.
“I’m still playing with the same enthusiasm as ever and if one day it happens then it will be something for me to enjoy.
“I just want to do my job here and it is the Coach who will decide,” he concluded.