Soccer Football - LaLiga - Atletico Madrid v Girona - Civitas Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain - August 25, 2024 Girona coach Michel before the match REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
(Reuters) - Girona manager Michel said they must forget all about last season's third-place finish in LaLiga and that the players are starting from scratch in the current campaign after Sunday's 3-0 defeat by Atletico Madrid left them in the bottom three.
After securing their best-ever league finish and a place in the Champions League for the first time Girona have been off the pace in the new campaign, drawing at Real Betis in their opener before losing heavily at Atletico.
"That is one of the challenges I have as a coach, to get the best version of each player by putting the counter to zero, no one can think that our goal is to finish third again," Michel told a news conference.
"We're always going to be compared but it's clear to us that we're a team that has to work with humility, we have to keep growing, we have pride and we want to be better than last year, we'll try but we'll always keep our feet on the ground."
Despite the score, the Spaniard took some positives from their performance against "a great team".
"I don't look too much at the result, but we have to be quicker in the game and we have to be more aggressive with and without the ball," he added. "In defence and in pressing situations we did well."
Girona will look for their first LaLiga win of the season on Thursday when they host Osasuna.
(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Mexico City; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
