Real Oviedo Head Coach Juan Antonio Anquela appeared before the Press this morning, and assessed the work done by his team ahead of the home game against Nàstic de Tarragona.
The Real Oviedo Coach began his remarks by assuring that “we do not have any players out, other than Tejera. There are 19 available and we’ll have to leave somebody out. We will look at all of the possibilities tomorrow, after the last training session.”
When asked about the players close to suspension, Anquela stated that “I don’t even know who they are right now. We aren’t planning around that right now, because in football all you need to do is plan for something and it won’t turn out that way. The only match that is important to me is the one this Sunday. That’s it. I am concerned that players being on the brink of suspension could have an effect, because it is hard to rule yourself out of the next match, but all I’m concerned about is the match against Nàstic. That’s it. I hope that no one is thinking about anything else, because that would be a huge mistake.”
Speaking about the opponent, Anquela said, “it’s the same thing I always tell you; they’re a good team. They do a lot of things well, and the other day they beat Albacete. I have seen them play well in Pamplona and draw in Coruña. They are just like everyone else, but they went on a bad run. They are perfectly capable of beating us, in the same way that we can beat them.”
Addressing the absence of Tejera, the Real Oviedo Coach said, “it means that we are missing a great footballer, but whoever comes in will hope to do well. We’ll see if we can get back to being the team that we stopped being last week. The team was missing a lot of things in Mallorca. We madetwo errors at the back and we stopped doing things that we were doing well, especially at set pieces. We paid for it dearly.” Anquela explained that “we have worked (on set pieces) just like every week. It is a question of concentration, and saying to yourself, ‘where do I have to be?’ Two matches in a row. We were doing so well for a long time in this regard, but we have made two recent mistakes with positioning. I’ll say it again; when we are not at 100%, we won’t even draw. It doesn’t matter who you are playing against. I hope that we are at the required level.”
Regarding Saúl Berjón, the Real Oviedo coach commented that “I see him looking well, being involved. He is very important, but more important than Saúl or any other player is the team. I think Saúl is very important and I have great respect for him, but before him or whoever it may be, we have to give whatever the team asks of us.”
Finally, with respect to the statistic which now places him as the Real Oviedo coach with most matches managed in the Grupo Carso era, Anquela concluded by stating that he was “very grateful because I am where I want to be and I know how hard it is to stay here. You have to try to be at the level that they ask of you. Grupo Carso has always told me to be how I have always been, and I’ve heard nothing but words of encouragement and support from them. That is very important to me as a coach and as a person.”
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