Jorge Jesus with the press ahead of hosting of Skënderbeu

Meeting with the press ahead of Thursday’s Europa League hosting of Skënderbeu, Jesus guaranteed that his side is focused purely on the task at hand, before revealing that Matheus Pereira will feature in the starting line-up.

“This is our third match in this competition and we only have one objective: to win so that we can carry on fighting for a place in the next round. It will be a hard game against against a team that is theoretically weaker than the other teams in the group, but I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. I know that I will put out a team out that is strong enough to come away with the win and the fact that their coach has pointed out the quality of our strikers shows that he knows us well. We really do have some quality strikers and I am a lucky coach to be honest, because the way I see it we won’t lose any quality, no matter who plays”, opened the Alvalade boss adding: “We have nothing to hide. Matheus Pereira will be in the starting team and I can’t really say anything else about the rest, because we will still have another training session tomorrow. What I will say is that almost all of the players are fully recovered now, with the exception of Bryan Ruiz, who is the only player who isn’t in full training right now.

Questions about Sunday’s derby were inevitable, but Jorge Jesus played it cool, affirming that he is squarely focused on the task at hand: “All I am thinking about is the match tomorrow. I will put two teams out, one for each game, and both will be capable of winning. Relative to Sunday, all I want to say is that I am happy to see Salvio back. I hope he has recovered well, because he is a great player, professional and friend.”

With Sporting expected to put the Albanian visitors under pressure come kick off tomorrow, Jorge Jesus already has his plan thought out: “We are sure that we will face a well organised team. I don’t know exactly how good they are, but I know they will cause us problems and we are ready for that. When there is one team that falls back in defence it reduces the space a bit and you have to be patient. Tomorrow we will look to show the class needed to tackle the difficulties we will face. It will be us attacking and we will have to find a way to score.”