Andoni Iraola is looking forward to the fixture with **Tottenham**on Saturday. His squad is steadily rebuilding, but he still senses that things this year will be closer to "when he arrived here" in England.
‘It’s unfair for us to compare’
Without any detail to add to this statement, Iraola is not ruling out the idea of more arrivals between now and deadline day.
“I think they will. They will see. I don't know how many new faces, but they will see. I think we are not finished. The club is working on adding more players, but we don't know. I don't know.”
He has stressed his focus is on working with the squad available to take away a result against Spurs.
“That is the talk, but right now in my mind. I know that people are working on this, but I've not been thinking in these things. We have a very important game, very demanding game tomorrow and my full focus is there. I focus only on the sporting side and I hope we can play a good game tomorrow.”
However, he will become worried if any more players leave the camp over the next three days.
“Number wise I think now we cannot afford to lose players.”
The manager made clear he will be aware of what happens on 1 September, but it is not in his hands.
“They call me. I'm not so hands on with these things. I am in touch; they inform me about everything but for me the biggest day is today and tomorrow. Then there are other people in charge of things.”
For now, Iraola is focusing on integrating a pair of £25 million attackers. One has lots of **Bundesliga**experience, but he is coming back from a fibula injury, and the other is cutting his teeth at this level.
*“We have big hope with the players we sign but we have work to do because players like **Ben Doak*and Amine Adli just trained with us two three days so we need to integrate everyone whoever comes this last two three days and to make a collective unit again no and this will take the time I think.”
The Basque believes comparison is the thief of joy. Four members of their back five from last season have joined new clubs, hurting their continuity, so some pieces of the puzzle will take time to fit in.
“It’s unfair for us to compare us against the past season's team. I think it's a different process from past season. Big changes summer. We lost a lot of very important players that played a lot of minutes and we've also signed a lot of players. I hope we achieve similar things but it's a different part of the process. I have more the feeling like when I arrived here that it was everything like new for me.”
‘He’s quite sharp naturally’
On top of the Carabao Cup exit to Brentford, **Julian Araujo**received a red card in midweek. He will be absent for the trip to **Tottenham,**along with two men recovering from major knee injuries.
“We are in a good places. I think we have Lewis Cook and Enes Unal out injured. Enes obviously with a long-term injury and different case but Lewis I think is doing well and during the international break we can integrate him with the team and then Julian suspended because he received a red card.”
Ryan Christie battled through a groin injury in phases of the last campaign. He is working his way back to full fitness after an operation. Justin Kluivert picked up a calf injury that ruled him out of the final preparations in preseason. Both men are getting closer to being starting options for the manager.
“They needed the minutes. I think they still need more minutes. They haven't done a proper preseason. Especially Ryan. Ryan’s last game he played starting probably I don't know if it's probably March or even before. I don't know. So but it's good to have him. He gives us quality minutes. He’ll improve.”
Kluivert and Christie started in midweek, but the Dutchman is a little nearer to a clean bill of health.
“Justin’s a player that normally doesn't take a lot to get in in form sometime players need because they are more heavy or because they need more training more I think he's quite sharp naturally and I hope no because I think he was quite good the other day that he's already at a good level to help us.”
Both will allow Iraola to rotate Alex Scott and Justin Tavernier as options ahead of Tyler Adams in the middle of the park. The boss revealed what he saw in Christie's game to move him into midfield.
“Straight away we could see we preferred him in our system in the inside positions. I remember him we started putting him more forward in the number 10 role and after some weeks we tried in the number eight and we've seen mostly in those two positions. He understands the game very well.”