Jorge Sampaoli admits Sevilla’s progress under his watch “has been much better than I expected” ahead of Saturday’s La Liga opener against Espanyol.
Sampaoli has lost all three of his competitive matches as Sevilla boss to date, with defeats coming against Real Madrid and Barcelona in the Super Cups, but he remains adamant his side are making all the right noises.
“The team’s development has been much better than I expected, more so for a team with new players who don’t know the club, because the change in culture can take longer. I’m excited,” the Coach said at a Press conference.
“We must seek the result from the start and create chances against a defensively-compact team, and then we’ll see what mistakes we make when we attack.
“It’ll be a clear match, although transitions will bother us if we’re not clear in our attacks. We have to be strong when they come at us.
“[Espanyol] are a very enclosed team, whose Coach organises them very well defensively. We’ll try to recover in the little time we have and make the players as strong as possible.
“Fatigue also produces problems, but we’ll see how we can strategically solve this problem with 24 hours of training. The team are confident for the win, and the fans also deserve it.
“Hopefully [more signings] can arrive. They’re not a requirement of the coaching staff but rather a joint decision with the club, who will [ultimately] determine if they are needed.
“[Wissam] Ben Yedder and [Luciano] Vietto both came to score goals, and we know that they’ll help us. Hopefully we’re a team that soon win matches.”
