Lech Poznan star assesses Sunderland challenge
Sunderland will face Polish champions Lech Poznan in their last Europa League fixture on Thursday evening.
Polish champions Lech Poznan are determined to kickstart their Europa League campaign with a home win against Sunderland on Thursday after emerging pointless from a visit to Crystal Palace and a home game against Bayer Leverkusen.
That was the verdict of key defender Michal Gurgul as his side look to take their impressive form in domestic competition into the Europa League by inflicting a defeat on Regis Le Bris’ side. Lech have suffered just one defeat in ten league games and boosted their hopes of successfully defending their Ekstralasa title with a 6-1 hammering of Korona Kielce on Sunday afternoon. That was enough to ensure Niels Frederiksen’s sided are sitting just one point behind current league leaders Gornik Zabrze as they prepare to turn their focus towards their European campaign.
The defeats against Palace and Bayer mean Lech are bottom of the league table ahead of their meeting with the Black Cats - but Gurgul has revealed his side are not changing their preparations for the game as he delivered his opinion on what his side are expecting to face at the Enea Stadion.
As per Polish outlet Sportowe Fakty, the Poland Under-21 international said: “We expect them to be a slightly less physical side than Crystal Palace, and we also expect them to play a bit more direct football than Bayer. We’ve analysed them, and we’re prepared. Our preparations have been quite similar; we don’t really have much more time or opportunity to practice specific aspects. We’re aware of how the previous matches went and we’d like to respond to those two defeats. We’ll want to keep possession as much as possible and create chances, because we know we’re strong in those areas. We’re capable of causing them problems and scoring a goal.”
‘Some sort of disaster’
Lech’s need to pick up some points is far greater than Sunderland after the Black Cats secured a maximum return from their home game with AZ Alkmaar and last weekend’s visit to Portuguese Cup winners Torreense. Despite conceding their exploits in European competition can aid their bid to retain their league title at domestic level, Gurgul has stressed failing to beat Sunderland will be ‘some sort of disaster’.
He said: “Matches like these mean a lot to me, just as they do to the whole team. Our opponents set such a pace that we can then effectively carry that over into the league – that’s an important aspect. We want to start picking up points and, above all, concede fewer goals. The ideal scenario is a win, but I wouldn’t want to set a clear target that if we don’t win, it will be some sort of disaster. I’d like to be able to say after the match that we gave it our all: then we’ll find out if that was enough for a win.”
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