Ruben promises proactive approach

The boss explained that our next fixture, while a huge date for our supporters, would be treated with the same mindset as any other outing.

Part of that is working out the best approach, and Ruben believes it should be all about being proactive, rather than playing on the break, or in transition...

Ruben, I want to ask first about the international window and what you were doing and how busy that was?
“Really good. I watched the games again. I tried to watch the last games against City. I tried to imagine some positions for the players. Especially when you have some injuries, you have to prepare the future, to be comfortable in many situations. So it was a normal break, enjoying the weekend with the kids, bringing the kids to the school. But always thinking about the next match.”

It's always a nervy time for managers to wait for their players to return after international duty. So how has everybody reported back and what are things looking like as we prepare to face City at the Etihad on Sunday?
“Diogo Dalot is the only problem. The rest of the guys return really well, but then you have that urgency to put the players in the right mindset. It's going to be a really tough match, but we are playing so much better and that gives us confidence to win games, so we are prepared for them.”

There were some really interesting reports and articles about the way your team has been performing and how those statistics, the underlying statistics, prove they’ve been a little bit better than perhaps some of the results have suggested. So is that encouraging going forward? Does that show we're going in the right direction?
“That is important also to show the players. But we also connect that data to the image and I think we could play quite [a bit] better against Fulham. We should [still] be in the [Carabao] Cup and we show that today to the players, to return also to that mindset that we have a lot to do. And we know how important this game is for our fans. So, of course, we used all this data to say to the players that we are improving, but you need to score goals and I think we have [had] that problem with these first games.”

As a fan, we always look at when we're going to play City, home and away. It’s a huge game for the fans and unusually, of late, we go in above them in the table. What do you make of how they’re playing right now and what challenges do they possess, to offer your team the weekend?
“First of all, our goal is to have that feeling that when we play against City, we have the same feeling as when we play Grimsby. That is our goal, to play every game from our team with the same mindset. So it's just one more game, really important, but it should be a game against City every week. I think City has that way of playing with a lot of possession. They change, a lot, the way they build up and that is a problem to press. But we focus a lot on our team. We have a way of defending that we can adapt to different systems. And we need to have the ball also, that is really important, because we play with the ball and we show that in the last games, so we cannot face City thinking about just in transitions or trying to steal the ball. No, we can have the ball, and we will try to do it.”