‘There’s only one big club for me, ours’ – Imanol Alguacil not intimidated by Manchester United

Real Sociedad have not had the most fruitful of recent histories against Manchester United in recent times, failing to score a single goal against the Red Devils in their previous four meetings.

That does not mean that La Real will be taking a conservative approach for their trip to Old Trafford on Thursday evening however.

Speaking ahead of their first Europa League group stage match, manager Imanol Alguacil showed no sign of intimidation.

“For me, there’s only one big club, which is ours.”

Alguacil did preface that with his respects to Manchester United and in no way was the Basque manager seeking to belittle the Red Devils, rather respond to many questions about facing ‘a big side’ like Manchester United.

He plans to take that attitude into the match itself too, although they will likely be without regular central defender Robin Le Normand for the clash.

“We want to show who we are, rely on personality,” Alguacil told Mundo Deportivo.

“We want to go at our opponent, without speculating. The thing is that the opponent also likes to do the same.”

“I would not like to draw being shut inside the box, I would prefer to lose and with a team that goes for it. There is no other way – we have to be brave all of the time. If not, there are very slim chances of winning at a stadium like this one.”

Despite their success domestically, La Real have struggled to translate that into European form in recent years. The Txuri-Urdi will be hoping that this is the year they can make a deep run into the competition.

Tags Europa League Imanol Alguacil Manchester United Real Sociedad
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