Spain coach Luis Enrique is not concerned by his team’s scoring struggles and is confident his players can do a job against Malta this evening.
The former world and European champions kicked off their Euro 2020 qualifying campaign with a hard-fought 2-1 win over Norway last Saturday but their performance at the Mestalla Stadium in Valencia highlighted again the team’s difficulties in putting the ball into the net.
Key striker Alvaro Morata squandered a series of goalscoring opportunities against their Scandinavian opponents and it had to be a Sergio Ramos penalty late on that spared Spain’s blushes and handed them a perfect start to their campaign.
“There have been talk that we are struggling to score goals at the moment but I’m not too overly concerned about it giving the talent I have in my squad,” the former Barcelona midfielder told a news conference.
“If you look at our statistics one can find that we scored 19 goals in our last seven matches. That gives us an average of 2.7 goals per match. Barcelona have a scoring rate of 2.6 goals so you can make your own conclusions.”
Asked whether he expected more from his attacking duo of Morata and Asensio after their off-colour performance against Norway, the Spanish coach had a clear view on the pair.
“Alvaro Morata and Asensio are unquestionably two very good players who are more than capable of creating space for their team-mates when the team is pushing forward.
“We always try to play our style of football and it’s more a question of making the right decisions but as I said we are more than capable of scoring.”
Facing Malta in their second outing represents a great opportunity for the Spaniards to increase their goal ratio in Group F but the Spanish coach said that his main focus was to see his team play their style of play.
“Malta have the advantage of playing in front of their fans but my main concern is that I see my team playing a high-pressing game and try to open our opponents with good passing play. If we do that than I will be a happy man.”
Malta threat
As happened during the earlier press conference of the Malta national team, Enrique was also questioned on his memories of the 12-1 Spanish victory over Malta in 1983.
“My only memories were that being a young Spanish player I celebrated the team’s win and the qualification to the European Championships like any other fan,” Enrique said.
Also present for the press conference was Barcelona wing back Jordi Alba who refused to underestimate the threat posed by Malta.
“There are no easy matches in international football and that is a fact,” Alba said.
“We are approaching the match very seriously and we need to be focused to ensure that there are no surprises for us. We will play our normal attacking game and hopefully this time we take the chances that come our way.”