Olympiacos made it two wins from two in the Stoiximan Super League following their away victory over Asteras Aktor. Speaking at the press conference after the match in Tripoli, The Legend’s coach, José Luis Mendilibar, stressed that his team deserved to score more goals.
José Luis Mendilibar’s comments in detail:
We saw a team with five new players and, in general, several new additions to the squad. How important is it for you to get wins early on while trying to build the team again?
It is very important to win, but anything could have happened in this match. It was quite an open game. We took the lead and had many chances to score another goal, and I believe we were quite creative. On the other hand, though, we gave our opponents space and opportunities to threaten us, and we could have conceded. Even though we created more danger throughout the match, we had to keep fighting for the win until the final minute, which is why it is important that we keep winning.
Just like last year, the team is missing a lot of chances in the opening matches of the season. What do you think is the reason for that? Also, when do you think we will see Olympiacos playing the way you have envisioned?
It is very difficult to reach that point because the transfer window is still open and players will continue to come and go. That makes things quite difficult, particularly because the players coming in have not had a proper pre-season and need time to work before we can say that, at some point, we will be ready. So, at the moment, we are not yet ready in our matches, as we saw today, when we gave our opponents space. That is something we do not want to happen, because otherwise we will continue to have to work hard for 1-0 wins.
What is your assessment of goalscorer Jota Silva’s performance, and in which position are you thinking of using him?
He needs to improve further and adapt to the team. He will certainly help us a lot because he is a player who reads situations very quickly, recognises where the opportunity lies and gets himself into the right position. He is a player who will score goals because he is always looking to get involved in attacking situations during a match. However, there are things he needs to improve, such as being calmer when he has the ball and contributing more defensively.
