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González: "The work has been impressive, and it needs to be recognised"
The coach assesses the win over Rayo Vallecano
RCD Espanyol coach Manolo González highlighted the outstanding performance his team have been delivering so far this season, following their 1-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano on LaLiga Matchday 15.
“Nobody imagined all this. It's a tremendous achievement, and nobody is giving us credit. Nobody is acknowledging what the team are doing -and what we're doing is truly remarkable. We're coming off a difficult promotion, a hard-fought survival campaign, and we've built a squad with hardly any signings and spending very little money. The work has been impressive, and it needs to be recognised,” he told the media.
“I'm not speaking as a coach or in the first person. We're currently ahead of Real Betis, who beat us here. This team deserve recognition, not only from the club but also from the world of football, because things are going phenomenally well.”
González stated, “European qualification doesn’t mean anything to me right now. I can’t say anything more. It’s not the time to talk about it. We need to compete like we did today. The day we make a mistake, it’s clear we can lose to anyone.”
The Espanyol coach insisted that “the key to the way we play is that we’re always in the game. We try to compete at the highest possible level and we create scoring opportunities. They had a very clear chance through Unai López in the first half, but overall we had more chances than Rayo to win today.”
Finally, after several decisions in the game resulted in confusion and he called for clear criteria from referees.
“For me, it’s about having unified criteria, especially regarding the referees. I almost never talk about the referees. These are situations we all need to be clear about. Yesterday I was watching the Premier League and the referee explained the situations. That’s good transparency for football. I don’t understand why Kike García’s goal was disallowed. They showed us an image that… I understand it’s very difficult to referee and they’re under a lot of pressure too, but the criteria need to be unified. It creates confusion for coaches and players. They need to unify the criteria because otherwise you’ll go crazy,” he concluded.