The urgent tasks facing Javier Aguirre at Valencia | OneFootball

Javier Aguirre arrived in Valencia on Thursday and immediately set about urgent repairs, from tightening a porous defence to lifting fitness and form.

According to AS, he went straight to the training ground for his first session, greeting each player. He had spent 10 days studying club-supplied videos, training footage and data from sporting director Braulio Vázquez.

Man-management sits at the heart of his plan, and he both addressed the dressing room in a supportive, fatherly tone and praised Óscar Sánchez’s handling of the last two matches.

From extensive video review he noted fluctuating form among key men, including José Luis Gayà and Javi Guerra, and will lean hard on physical conditioning.

Injuries have undermined preparation and forced others to forgo rest. Aguirre plans to give Guido Rodríguez greater responsibility but must also help him sustain 90 minutes, while De Haas was hurried back amid a centre-back shortage.

He was not involved in the exit of doctor López Mateu. During this break he hopes to regain several injured players for his first matches, and centre-back is already on the January agenda.

He has reset the schedule, with sessions on Friday and Saturday, a Sunday off, a Monday presentation and a friendly targeted next week or against the B team.

Valencia have shipped 13 league goals, the fifth-most so far and their worst after 7 rounds. Aguirre must now define the game model, with 4-3-3 his most-used shape across 466 top-flight matches, though Valencia have tended to prefer 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2.

Source: AS

“Artificial intelligence was used to assist in creating this article based on reporting from the original source quoted.”