Manuel Pellegrini spoke about the difficulty of facing a team such as Atlético de Madrid, and how what concerns him the most is their potential in attack. The Chilean manager of Málaga doesn’t want his team to lose more points in the upcoming matches, especially at La Rosaleda, where they have to remain strong.

The ‘blanquiazul’ head coach said that “we have to try not to let any more points escape from anywhere; we’re in the relegation zone and the points at home are very important, but so are those on the road.”

Concerning the games that he has played against Atlético de Madrid, as both the manager of Villarreal and of Real Madrid, he pointed out that “they’ve been very strange matches, in Villarreal we drew four-all, and they were always very intense games, with lots of goals. At Real Madrid we won them both.”

With respect to whether Atlético might be affected by the elimination from the Europa League, he stated that “thinking that we’re going to win because of that would be a mistake. Many times teams overcome adverse situations, but the important thing is to worry about ourselves and try to get a fourth victory at home.”

Touching on this week’s opponent, the Chilean coach highlighted that “Atlético is a squad that has very good players. They have very positive streaks and negative streaks; they’re a bit indecipherable, but it’s going to be very hard to beat them. We have to be able to contain their strikers.”