The coach talks to the media after the 3-1 win

Rui Borges talked about the 3-1 victory over SC Farense for Sporting CP in his post-match press conference.

“I'm happy with the game we managed to play, that we were competent in what we could control, which is our game, and continued to defend our place in the table, which is what we want. I said yesterday that we would have to be calm and patient and we did that. We were very competent, except in the last 5-10 minutes of the first half.  I feel that, because of everything that we did, we could have made it 3-1 earlier, but I'm happy with the competence that the team had," he began by saying.

“SC Farense never had the initiative, we never gave it to them. We only lowered the intensity at the end of the first half, perhaps because we were winning 2-0. We were very soft when it came to the goal conceded. These games are very dangerous, but we also forget the age of most of our players.”

“Given their age, I couldn’t be happier with what they have done. It's not easy to play against such low blocks. I wish teams would try to share the play more with us. These games will never be very pretty, but the team did well, were very competent and I am very happy with what the players did,” continued Borges.

The coach also spoke about Geovany Quenda, saying that “he has been very competent playing on the left” and praised Iván Fresneda.

“He is, little by little, regaining his confidence. He is 20 years old and spent almost a year and a half without playing. Maybe the expectations on him were huge and he didn't live up to that because he didn't play. It's normal for confidence to drop, but he has had our trust and has played well. He will grow and gain maturity.”

Conrad Harder also won plaudits from Borges, who said that the Danish striker “gives different things” to the team.

“He's like a kid playing street football. There are very good things in his game. At times he lacks a little maturity, but he doesn't feel a lot of pressure and he doesn't feel the weight of replacing Gyökeres. He made a huge effort and worked hard.”

The Sporting CP coach commented that winter signing Rui Silva brought “maturity and experience,” but that he is satisfied with all the goalkeepers at his disposal.

He concluded by talking about the injured players, saying that “I want them to recover. I don’t know if anyone else will come in during the transfer window. I hope that Geny Catamo isn't out for long, but the injury meant that he had to go off."