Granada CF vs Villarreal preview - Garrido expects Villarreal improvement

Posted Saturday, September 17, 2011 by PA

Coach Juan Carlos Garrido is confident fans will see the best of Villarreal in the coming games as the Yellow Submarine look to recover from a poor start to the season.

Villarreal finished fourth last term and, after keeping hold of highly-rated strikers Giuseppe Rossi and Nilmar this summer and enjoying a decent pre-season in terms of results, hopes were high going into the new campaign.

However, things have not gone to plan so far.

They needed to come back from a first-leg deficit to beat Odense in the Champions League play-offs, and then in Wednesday's opening group stage match they lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich.

In La Liga, Villarreal suffered a 5-0 mauling at Barcelona in their opening match, and then last weekend they were held 2-2 at home by Sevilla, albeit coming within four minutes of victory despite playing three-quarters of the match with a man less.

Now Villarreal look to have an ideal chance to get their season up and running when they take on rock-bottom Granada this weekend, and Garrido expects his team to come good.

"The season has just begun and the start has been very tough. The team are very eager to show that we can do things much better and we are all working hard to achieve that. We are going to show that we are still a great team," he said.

"We have our pride. When you lose you must bring out the best of yourselves and I'm sure that in the next few games we are going to see the best Villarreal. This team is capable of playing very good football."

Garrido is not underestimating the potential threat posed by Granada though, adding: "Granada are a good team despite being recently promoted. They have brought in players with a lot of Primera Division experience and they have a very competitive coach."

Granada, playing in the top flight for the first time in 35 years, are still hunting for their first points and first goals after losing 1-0 at home to Real Betis and 4-0 at Malaga in their opening two games.

Striker Franco Jara, an Argentina international who is on loan from Benfica, said: "There needs to be patience, because success will arrive by working day in day out. We don't like losing, as such we are working hard to give the fans something to smile about."