Deportivo La Coruna vs Athletic Bilbao preview - Aduriz eyeing European return

Posted Saturday, January 03, 2015 by PA

Athletic Bilbao striker Aritz Aduriz has stated that his side's aim for the new year is to qualify for Europe again, even though the club are 11 points off the Europa League places.`

The Basques begin 2015 with a trip to relegation-fighting Deportivo La Coruna, and the striker hopes his team can get the new year off to a winning start to boost their chances of fighting for European football.

"Our objective is to always improve on what we have done before," Aduriz told the Primera Division's official website.

"It's going to be difficult with the bad run of form we had early in the season, but there's still a long way to go in the league, a lot of games left ahead and we would like to be in the top half of the table competing for the European places, although it's still very early.

"We need to keep on picking up points so we can get into those places, but our objective has always been to achieve the best we can."

Although they are 11th in the league table, Ernesto Valverde's side have struggled to find the net this season, scoring just 14 goals from their 16 matches.

"We have found it hard to score goals and we know that we need to improve this," Aduriz admitted.

"Last year we had a very strong spell where we were creating a lot of chances, but now we are struggling to do that and we are trying to do it again."

Aduriz is Athletic's top scorer with five goals but will miss the game at Riazor due to suspension, along with forward Iker Muniain. Striker Guillermo Fernandez and midfielder Ager Aketxe are injured, so 20-year-old Inaki Williams is set to start up front, with Ibai Gomez coming in for Muniain.

Deportivo will be without the suspended defender Sidnei and winger Lucas Perez, who is injured, but have been boosted by the return of centre-back Alberto Lopo from injury.

Deportivo are 17th and level on points with the relegation zone, but defender Alex Bergantinos believes the Galicians are capable of avoiding the drop.

"We aren't among the three worst teams in the league," he told Marca.

"There's very little difference between the teams near the bottom and I think we have a good enough squad and that we could have got a few more points in the first half of the season. I suppose every team thinks that but six or seven of the teams at the bottom are of a similar level of quality and we are capable of finishing above the bottom three."