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“We have to get ourselves out of this situation”
The Espanyol coach is self-critical after the defeat against Osasuna
Following the painful 2-4 loss to Osasuna at the RCDE Stadium, the Espanyol coach, Pablo Machín was critical of the team’s performance in the second half. “I hope that things cannot get any worse – otherwise we’re going to have a hard time of it. Now is not the time to talk too much about the things that went wrong, but to fix them and we’re the only people who can do that - we have to get ourselves out of this situation. If we take the lead, we can’t afford to give anything away. We can’t keep being so vulnerable, at the moment we’re handing opportunities to our opponents on a plate, and we can’t compete like that. Each of us needs to think about how we can improve, individually”.
Continuing, Machín suggested that the team has to be tougher and take more individual responsibility. “Today’s performance is not representative of how we usually play; it was like watching a different team. We showed glimpses of how we want to play in short periods in the first half. We have to press in the opponent’s half, attack down the wings, get the ball in the box, and today we didn’t do any of that enough. Perhaps today was a backwards step, we didn’t see the continuation of the improvement we’ve been seeing game by game. I was also unable to communicate to the team the changes I wanted to make to our game. This is maybe my fault and I take complete responsibility because I am the captain of the ship and I’m hugely disappointed”.
“In flashes we did the right things, but not often enough and we have to recognize that even in the first half we weren’t at our best but we scored the penalty and had a couple of chances to decide the game, but if you don’t take your chances you pay the price. When the chances arose, we weren’t able to take them”, the Espanyol coach noted.
Despite the defeat, Machín wanted to make it clear that the team would give everything going forward to get out of the current predicament. “Starting tomorrow, we have to lift our heads up, keep working together, recognize what’s gone wrong and keep working hard at the things we got right. I’m the last person to give up and jump ship. We will take this team forward. I’m sure of it”.