After feasting on their farewell to Gobela, Arenas seeks this Sunday to achieve a second consecutive victory at the home of bottom team Cacereño. … An important duel for the historic team, which needs to take a step forward in its numbers as a visitor and will try to take advantage of the good wave to add three points at the Príncipe Felipe. It would be the best way to start the second round of competition, which presents a demanding schedule for the red-and-blacks, with two games away from their fiefdom before the premiere in Fadura, set for February 1.
«We are aware of what is coming to us, we are very clear about it. But we have to separate. Thinking beyond Cacereño wears us out. We do not have that capacity nor can we distract ourselves beyond this game,” warns Jon Erice. “I think we would be wrong not to put one hundred percent of what we have into the Cáceres game,” he emphasizes.
The head of Gobela’s bench is right, because this duel is one of those called ‘his league’ for Arenas. The Extremadura team is bottom, with 16 points, and is also the worst local team in the entire First Federation, with only 1 home win. Meanwhile, Arenas has 24 in his locker. Winning would be taking an important leap forward and leaving a direct rival at a good distance, in addition to winning the average. In the first round, the clash ended in a draw (2-2).
A tope
That duel, even in an early second day, will surely have little to do with what both teams offer on the Prince Felipe green. «For us it is a very difficult match. They have players with experience, with time in the club, also reinforcements who have recently arrived in the winter market… we know that we are the last in line and that in each game we must give two hundred percent not to win it, but to compete in it,” launches the Arenas coach.
Erice is clear about it, and he doesn’t want his people to relax in the slightest. When they have done it, even more so away from Gobela, they have paid dearly. «You have to be prepared for a very tough game in which anything can happen. We have to be aware that we have to be very alive from minute 1 to minute 95. We cannot leave the game or lose concentration, because then we will receive a severe corrective measure,” he states emphatically.
Along the same lines, the Navarrese points out that “they are very alive, the fact that they are bottom does not change at all my objective analysis of what I see from them on the field, and I see many good things about them.” “They are a rival with a squad that I like, that plays at home, with their people and that in the second round they will want to get the points to achieve the goal,” he adds.
Precisely about the beginning of this second half of the course, Jon Erice considers that “teams tend to risk less in the second rounds, the games are closer, there are some conditions and more importance is given to points, something that I think is a mistake.” “The points are worth the same in August as in April, what happens is that in April you no longer have as much room for maneuver,” says Jon Erice, who advances that “we are not going to change our way of playing,” regardless of the height of the season.
