Sevilla coach Jorge Sampaoli warned his side after their surprise 1-1 La Liga draw at home to CD Leganes on Saturday that they must arrest the downward spiral in performances or face elimination from the UEFA Champions League by Leicester City.
Sevilla’s hopes of pipping pacesetters Barcelona and Real Madrid to the league title suffered another setback in the draw with Leganes, who are 16th with 32 points fewer.
The struggling Madrid side raced into the lead in the third minute at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, where Sevilla had previously won 10 of 12 league games, and wasted two chances to stretch their lead before Stevan Jovetic’s equalizer in the 43rd minute.
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Sevilla were unable to build momentum after the break and dropped points for the second game running following Monday last week’s 1-1 draw at Deportivo Alaves.
Sevilla have a 2-1 lead in their round-of-16 tie with Leicester and Sampaoli urged his side to improve before their visit to the King Power Stadium tomorrow.
“Playing like this we’re going to struggle to go far in the Champions League because you face the toughest games against opponents who don’t afford you any mistakes,” Sampaoli told reporters after his side were booed off the pitch. “If we don’t manage to improve the way we control games then Tuesday’s game is going to be very difficult.”
The coach said his side’s troubles were not just down to struggling to put their chances away.
“The problem is we’re not as fluid in our play as before and that prevents us from creating chances against sides that play a different way. The solution is to keep focusing on our play, because we’re very anxious and teams that are very organized like they were today impose themselves on us,” he said.
Jovetic acknowledged that Sevilla had not performed against a team they were expected to beat.
“We didn’t play well today and we all know it. I don’t know why, but we need to lift our morale because we have a crucial game on Tuesday and we need to get out of this situation,” Jovetic said. “We’re all to blame, and we need to all have a long conversation together to try and resolve this problem.”
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