La Liga | Will have to structure squad based on what matches we have: Manuel Pellegrini
Real Betis' newly appointed coach Manuel Pellegrini said that he will have to make do whatever time he has with the squad before the start of the new La Liga season.
Pellegrini, who was announced as coach of Betis on July 9, has only four matches to evaluate his squad before the 2020/21 season of the Spanish league starts on September 12.
"We will play very few games, it is an unusual pre-season, pretty short really, with only 4 friendly games, all that added to the daily work," Pellegrini said.
"Of course I will have to try and make the right decisions, I would have liked to have seven friendly games, but it was not possible, so I will have to structure the squad in the month that we have."
The former Manchester City and Chile manager however said that the work that has been put in thus far has been useful.
"I have been able to meet the players in person and in that sense we are seeing what the spots to reinforce are. We have had injuries in many of them so little by little we will have to define the final squad," Pellegrini said.
Betis played a friendly against the newly promoted Cadiz CF and managed to get a clean sheet out of the match.
"It was a very positive test, first because it was the very first game of the season and we have only been working two weeks, and the first was pretty tough because we had to work individually, so we did not have much time to prepare the team tactically but I think the players gave a very good response.
"Winning is always important and it's important not to concede, so finishing with a 1-0 and I was very happy with the individual performance and the few details we were able to work on as a group," Pellegrini said.
