Marcelino: “The team kept to the plan, we played a great match”

Athletic Club manager Marcelino said he was delighted by his side’s performance on Monday night in Cádiz.

The Lions won 0-4 against Cádiz CF at the Ramón de Carranza, after going 0-3 up in the first 30 minutes.

“We played a great match,” Marcelino said during his post-match press conference. “The team kept to our plan, which was to attack.

“We’re very pleased with the performance we put in throughout the entire match.

“We were dynamic and direct, and strong in every part of the pitch.

“Overall, I’m very happy with what we did.”

Marcelino was particularly impressed with Athletic’s lightning start and put the victory down to coming out all guns blazing.

“We scored very early on and this helped us a lot,” he added. “The players had that hunger to win from the start of the match.”

“I think today was the result of many things. But without a doubt, the determination the team started with was extremely important.”

Álex Berenguer was brought off despite being able to score a hat-trick, but Marcelino insisted he will always put the team above any individual as it good for everybody.

“When everyone contributes, Athletic and all the players benefit,” he said. “We try to be fair and respect everybody.

“We’ve always been in favour of making sure as many players as possible can participate as they’ve all earned that opportunity with their daily work.”

Athletic now have a six-day break before they take on Villarreal and Marcelino admitted it do his side good.

“For the first time in a long time we have six days to recover,” he added. “It will do us good to rest our legs.

“We’re thinking about Villarreal. Tonight we played well but I think there’s also room for improvement.

“We have a high level, but we can be more competitive. If we can maintain this mentality, we’ll be on the right track.”