An important victory for the playoffs. Girona went back to Las Palmas. 1 Terrats pursues Jesse in a party action. F
2 Baena fights a ball. F
Yesterday’s victory at Las Palmas (1-3) propels the team into the play-off zone, but Michel is not aware that “every game is a war”. Happy with the result and the management of the game, the coach is already focusing on Ibiza’s visit to Montilivi next Saturday.
“We had a clear idea throughout the match. Las Palmas is a team that has a lot of possession and we had to get rid of it. We had some inaccuracies at first, but we made them run a lot. This has been noticed in the second part. The changes have given us even more possession, being able to make the field wider. We have managed to generate from side to side. Las Palmas had one less man, but we already had games like this in which we had not been able to generate chances to score. In general, we deserve the victory, although it is true that the expulsions have favored us. I think they are fair. We just did our job. The team competed well, except for the minutes when they were 9 and we thought we should put the game to sleep instead of killing it. That was playing with fire because they could have hurt us in any action on a set piece. We should have scored the third one much earlier.
“In the start of the ball, Arnau was the third center, but the idea was, knowing that Jesé is a player with speed, that Ramon would control the situation. He is also very fast and we knew we would have more ball in rival field. Ramon with defense on his back could help us a lot. We needed more of his ability to defend in space, he has done well as a center. With the changes we have been able to bring the ball quickly to the rival field, generating many chances to score.
“There was no step forward until the first expulsion. We did things very well calmly and avoiding Jesse’s counterattacks in space. The expulsion of Raúl Navas has even gone badly for us. Las Palmas has gone ahead, while we wanted to manage the ball without hurting. I didn’t like the team in those minutes. Until 1-3 we weren’t one hundred percent sure of victory. The expulsions are the result of nerves, it was a play-off match for both of them and there have been some.
“I am very happy for him for the two goals. He’s bringing us in when he comes off the bench. I know he has a lot of eyes on him, but he has to be calm and compete like he did. He knows that Stuani has 16 goals, but it’s good that he comes out and scores two.
“I’m thinking about the next game. Ibiza is a rival that we have very close and we need all three points. In Montilivi with our people we have to be a winning team. It will be a complicated match. If we win, we don’t have to pay attention to what the rest of us do. We did it with Las Palmas which is a direct rival and we have to do it with Ibiza. It’s good to stop them from coming, but there’s a lot left and we have to see how far we can go. ”
“Las Palmas is not out of the fight for the play-offs because every game here is a war. We did not take a giant step, we achieved a good result in a difficult field. I don’t think Las Palmas has dropped out of the playoffs. ”
