The head coach has had another busy week on the training pitch, working on improvements from Watford last week and preparing for Saturday’s battle with Brentford. Pleased the points arrived last weekend, but now Lage is focused on continuing to improve, to ensure more points are just around the corner for his team.
On players carrying out his thoughts
“I’m not doing anything special. I’m just training them the way I like to train and play the way I enjoy to see. This is what we are doing. First, it’s teamwork, and the players’ work, it’s not mine. I just do the proposal, this is our way to play, this is our way to train, and they are on board with that.
“Every manager has his own way to work. The question here is if they players want or not. And since the first day, I saw that. We have a lot of top players with a lot of experience. From the first day, I saw in their eyes they want to work the way we do. I’m very clear in what I want from my team, and that’s why we have a lot of meetings where we analyse training, we analyse our games and then with time, they can understand better what we want in every situation.
“In the game, they don’t have too much time to think, but they already know what they need to do because they are training very hard. We know what difficulties the opponents create, and in training we prepare for these situations, so when it comes to the games, they already know what they have to do.”
On turning performances into points
“It’s very important. I believe the work we are doing in the weekend, comes in the way we are training, but it has to come from them. If the players don’t want, then we cannot work miracles. The main point is that the players want to work and they want to train in the way we are playing, and the performance comes because we are training well.
“I never saw a team during the week that didn’t do the right things. The consequences of what we did during the games comes from training during the week. That’s the one thing I don’t compromise on from anyone.
“We start the first two or three days, we work on the little things we have to improve, and in the end, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the things we have to do to win the next match. The next game is the most important for us, we need to do it like we did last week.”
On taking the next step
“Continue to do what we’re doing and improve. So, we have been working with these guys five or six weeks, so after Watford, we don’t change anything. We come to training with the same ambition – when you are winning, you continue to improve things, you want to improve things.
“We want the players to arrive in the position to create more chances, we want to press in a different way, we want to improve every time. Every time after a game, during the week we try to improve. The next step is to have a good week of training and tomorrow continue with the same process, continue to grow up as a team.”
On Hwang’s positive start
“This is the way we work. He came with that habit and our habit is to training with the higher tempo, high intensity and everyone is doing well. He came and he joined in the training the same as the other guys are doing.
“Hwang did very well in Austria, he didn’t have too many chances in Germany, and he’s started very well. He played 30 minutes. I don’t want to put pressure on anyone, the pressure I want is for them to train the way we want, with a high tempo.
“He’s one more player to help us, that’s why, for me, I’m very happy to have four players who can play there, because I don’t have Pedro Neto yet. Daniel is also doing very well in that position, so we can play behind the striker or as a winger inside, also Hwang and also Adama and Trincao. That’s the point, have top players, and when they go to sleep, they are dreaming about what the other guys are doing in training and games.”
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On adding Mosquera’s quality to the group
“We need to be fair to the work Matt Hobbs did with his department. When I came, they already had him in mind. It was the first decision I made and that’s the way I want to work with everyone in the building. I’m not alone, I work with all the departments, and when we were trying to find players for the positions in my opinion we need to improve, they come with a name, me and my team analyse the name, and we agree that the scout department did very good work to find him.
“He’s a player for now and obviously for the future, he has speed, he has good technique, he can start from the back, he can have aerial duals that we need, so these characteristics are very important for that position, and Matt and his department did a very good job to find him for us.”
