Pellegrini: “They found themselves with an own goal and a non-existent penalty”

12/01/2024

Updated 12/02/2024 at 00:01h.

Disgusted he left Manuel Pellegrini of the Reale Arena in San Sebastián after a defeat that the Engineer, concise in his explanations, summarized in a few words. It was as brief as it was direct. He pointed out the refereeing but also made self-criticism because Betis’ crisis is evident: «It was the typical penalty of a local player who tries to simulate so that the VAR intervenes. The referee fell, went to see him and gave a non-existent penalty. Very bad game between both teams without shooting on goal: the own goal came without their player to finish it off and the penalty was taken because they wanted to take it. They found themselves with an own goal from us and a non-existent penalty. “We dominated a large part of the game but without creativity or shooting on goal,” the coach acknowledged.

Betis thus closes one complicated weeksealed with three defeats, but there is no choice but to get up as soon as possible because a calendar is as busy as it is demanding in the three competitions. This is how Pellegrini understands it: «We have to try to get out of this streak as soon as possible. When you are like this, you lose these types of games. They didn’t shoot at the goal and we didn’t have creativity to discount. “You have to maintain the attitude and confidence in what you do to get out of the bad results,” he said.

Asked for the recipe to escape this bad moment of play and results, the Engineer has no doubts. «We leave with peace of mind, with confidence in what we do.. Today what was least missing is attitude. There was a lack of football and creativity, he reiterated. The team tries. We have a lack of creative players now and we can’t do much damage, but the group is strongaware of the situation and confident that we can reverse the dynamic,” he concluded.