DESPERATE TO SUCCEED

“I went back and watched all his clips at Benfica and in his defence, it’s a completely different style of play. I sat down with him at one point early in the season and we were talking about match loads in terms of distance covered, sprint distance and he just couldn’t believe what we were asking him to do. In terms of shifting his mentality, that’s been really important. He’s a good kid and he’s desperate to be successful here, and I think he’s got the mentality now of having to do those things before he can do the things that he likes. What we’re asking him to do is very different to his upbringing in football but the one thing I would say is – he can do it.”

CENTER OF ATTENTION

“We made some modest adjustments to our possession tactics against Norwich, and I just thought we needed a focal point to build off of and utilize throughout the game. That’s why we chose to go with Hemir. I thought he performed alright overall. I believe he was entitled to a little bit more assistance. I believe we could have played better in the first fifteen minutes, but as we got into the swing of things, we had several plays where we looked comfortable in possession without really hurting anyone. We simply needed a focal point for the manner we set up, in my opinion.

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