Gracia: "We have to keep working and not lose confidence"

Valencia CF coach Javi Gracia reacted to the 3-1 loss to CA Osasuna in his post-match press conference, giving his thoughts on the LaLiga result.

Match analysis

I think the game was more even in the beginning, but through mistakes in our own half or on simple passes, we granted an advantage that the opposition made the most of. The team reacted well to equalise, but then another error in our own half, when not under pressure, led to us conceding another goal. After the break we started well, and Gonçalo Guedes and Kevin Gameiro both hit the post. Then we gave away the penalties and we lost strength. The opposition were able to score another goal against us. The team tried, despite the difficulties, and it just wasn't possible.

Mistakes

Before the game I said that it was necessary to do many things well and have a great attitude. The match was decided by different details and there were times when we fared worse than the opposition. Osasuna did enough to achieve victory and we lost strength. I wouldn't say that it was a question of attitude. Our attitude is always good. We made mistakes due to a lack of success in front of goal that is hindering us a lot from getting good results in games.

Avoiding mistakes

We are making many mistakes that are inappropriate for a team in this division. If I knew the reason for that, I would correct it. Against Betis we conceded two goals from set pieces that we could have defended in one way or another. In other situations there have been many similarities in errors at the start of moves, and we shouldn't always resort to long balls -even more so when we do not have an attacking reference up top. In this attempt to build from the back we are making mistakes with our passes. They are individual mistakes that we have to improve, and there is no other way to do that than to train and not lose confidence.

Responsibility

I am the coach and I take full responsibility. I work to make the players improve individually. Sometimes I will succeed and other times I won't. Together we are trying to reduce our errors, because they make it difficult for us to gain points.

Criticism

Whatever the fans say is well said. In such a delicate situation I understand that criticism has to exist. There is no other option than to accept the criticism and do things as well as possible.