Currently working with 16 first-team outfield players, the head coach, who welcomed his latest recruit Jesus Vallejo into the squad on Monday morning following his season-long loan move from Real Madrid last week, is confident another pair of players will join the club to give him the 18 he requires for the upcoming campaign.
On initial impressions of Jesus Vallejo
“He’s good, he’s doing good. He was involved in the Spanish under-21 team who became champions this summer which was very nice for him and he’s not had much of a holiday, so it’s not given him much time to lose his shape.
“He’s now integrating and getting the routines into the team, and everything will proceed normally.
“I expect him to provide us with different things to those we already have. It’s always the same; trying to find new solutions for what we consider already our idea, how we want to play, how we want to do things, so different players, versatile players who can bring these things that we hope can help us and improve the team.”
On the summer transfer window
“It’s been different this year because all the clubs are expecting or are not making decisions, but we’ve done our homework, we need to find the targets and then it’s a process of negotiating, finding the right moments, but everything gets delayed.
“We are still on time and are bringing the players that we want to bring because what we consider is always quality. We want to increase the quality to the squad.”
On targeting new players
“We focus on how we have to improve, of course we have to do things better than we did last season in some aspects of the game.
“We also did some things very well that we have to maintain, but it’s all about growing, becoming better, and the players already have this mentality.
“We still need two players if we’re going to achieve the number of 18 (outfield) players that we want to work with every day, whilst we have the back-up of the under-23s and the group of young players that we want to develop.”
On his squad for 2019/20
“I am very positive because we work on a daily basis and I see them every day, paying attention to every detail that you consider important.
“Success is always in the future, but I believe that we can always do better. This is playing better, the fans enjoying it more and performing better.”
