Valverde: “Two years at the same club is a long time”

Josu Urrutia looks set to continue his tenure as club President but there are question marks over who will be Athletic Club’s first team coach next season. Ernesto Valverde gave no hints as to whether he will still be at the helm in five months’ time when he faced the media today. Gaizka Garitano, in charge with tomorrow’s rival SD Eibar, is being touted as Valverde’s possible successor.

As a rule, you never like to spend two seasons with the same club...

Two years is a long time. I’ve never spent longer than two seasons at the same club. Even at Athletic, I’ve never had a great deal of continuity; we all know what football is like – the day to day routine takes its toll on everyone: players and the coach. And you are demanded to get instant results, when they don’t come, it’s the boss who is generally in the firing line.

Is that a hint that you will be moving on in the summer?

No, it’s not a hint. I am just trying to answer your question.

If your time at Athletic does come to an end in the summer, do you see Garitano as your replacement?

Now you are really diving in at the deep end! I consider all good coaches to be worthy of the Athletic job. It’s not impossible that I could also coach at Eibar. I don’t want to talk about the future – everyone will follow their own destiny. I appreciate the work Gaizka is doing and I am sure that it will all work out well for him

This is the first time Athletic have played a regional derby in Ipurua...

It’s a derby but there’s no difference between the two teams – we’re both are level on points. We need points as badly as Eibar do and we’ll be going out for the win. Eibar have entered into a negative dynamic after enjoying a great start. They will be going out to try and impose their game on us and I’m anticipating it to be an open match – partly because of the small dimensions of the pitch at Ipurua which invites play to switch from one team to the other quickly. It’s an attractive game because it’s an historic meeting – this is the first time that both clubs have been in the first division together.

Aduriz is looking a bit tired, are you planning reserving him for later in the game?

It’s possible that he could start on the bench and come on later. We’ll see.

How’s Gurpegi?

He’s a lot better. The bruising to his knee was quite nasty and we’ll wait to see how he gets on in training. Laporte played the other night even though he had a fever but he’s fully recovered now. Etxeita is fine – like Guillermo who is almost ready to return. We’ve drafted Yeray into the squad; he wasn’t available to play for Bilbao Athletic so he’s been brought in to make up the numbers.

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