Jorge Jesus reflects on loss in Rio Ave

Jorge Jesus did not shy away from speaking with the press after his side's 3-1 loss on Sunday night, accepting that his side were outclassed by a determined Rio Ave side.

"Rio Ave deserve to win with what they did in the first-half. We didn't do what we really needed to do tonight. There is a lot of football still to play, but we were not prepared to concede three goals. We have to look at what happened and react, starting with a win on Friday", affirmed the Sporting coach, adding: "Honestly my players surprised me a lot more than Rio Ave's did. We are a well organised team, but you couldn't see that today and it isn't worth making excuses as to why. We struggled to keep up with Rio Ave on the counter attack. One of their defenders brought the ball all the way up to our area for their first goal and normally that wouldn't happen."

Recovering from such an exhausting trip to Madrid during the week, squad rotation was inevitable. "We brought in four fresh players, because the lads who played in Madrid were not up to it. We can speak about it all we want before the match, but sometimes it is hard to reset your focus. Now I will sit down with the lads and we will talk about what happened. We looked better in the second-half. Normally the teams that I work with are more effective, but today we have to give credit to Rio Ave."