Villarreal central defender Gabriel Paulista is looking at being in the European places when La Liga breaks for Christmas this year.
The Brazilian is still recovering from a calf problem picked up in the Europa League game against FC Zurich, an injury that kept him out of the last League fixture with Espanyol, but is hoping to recover in time for the visit of Getafe on Sunday night.
“Last week was very hard for me and I was in a lot of pain, but it helped me on the road to recovery,” he told AS.
“I’ve done well and am already training more intensely with the physios, so I want to play against Getafe, who will be very strong.
“Even so, we are playing at home and must attack with intelligence so we pick up the three points we badly need.
“We have a great team and will try to win the next few games, because there are a lot of then coming up.
We’ll try to achieve our aim of getting near to the European places by Christmas as we want to qualify for the Europa League.
“We want to win again but know that no match in this League is easy.”
The Yellow Submarine are currently in eighth spot, six points behind sixth-placed Malaga, having stuttered recently with just one point taken from the last three games.