Aritz Aduriz has said there’s no desire for revenge against Espanyol among the Athletic Bilbao squad after last season’s home defeat.
Espanyol last season became the first away team to win at the new San Mames but Aduriz has described Friday night’s fixture as must-win, but not for reasons of revenge.
“We come into the game after four matches where we have taken good numbers, even though the situation isn’t what we want yet,” Marca quotes the striker saying.
“We have to continue on this line of winning and improving our play and our confidence. There are five League games until Christmas and beating Espanyol would give us a major boost to morale for the next matches.
“We don’t think about more than the three points. There is no desire for revenge. They won well and there’s nothing more to it.
“It’s essential we beat them because that would give us a major morale boost. We have to beat them because we want to improve.”
Aduriz has recently missed matches through injury but says the team hasn’t struggled because he wasn’t available, and denied that the summer exits of a number of last season’s stars were the catalyst either.
“No one is indispensable in any team. It’s true the team has found it harder to score than last year but this season started with adverse results and the team has been improving from the back, becoming more solid defensively,” he pointed out.
“That didn’t bring points and we need security and confidence to get forward and have more options to play with more freedom.
“We have a lot of players capable of scoring goals. It won’t be too long before we’re talking about other things.”
