Adi Hütter: "We are going to play attractive football"
The 2023-2024 season starts this Sunday for AS Monaco. Before heading to Auvergne and the Stade Gabriel-Montpied to face Clermont (kick-off 3 p.m.), the coach of the Rouge et Blanc, Adi Hütter, held his first pre-match press conference. He particularly emphasised the good pre-season carried out by the team, and the strengths of its squad. 🎙
About the team’s preseason
I am very satisfied with our pre-season. We had very good organization, and we benefited from the superb facilities at Saint George’s Park, during the training camp in England. But the most important thing for me was to establish a good relationship with all the players. The idea was that they understand my philosophy and my principles of play. I hope that we will be ready for this first match in Clermont, for my first steps in Ligue 1.
On the arrival of Philipp Köhn
I am very happy with the transfer window so far, in particular with the arrival of Philipp, who is a great goalkeeper. He had very good performances in preseason, among others against Arsenal and Bayern Munich. I am happy despite everything that there is competition in this position. His qualities? He is very good at one-on-one duels, has a very good game with his feet; he is almost like an extra defender. This will start to be shown in Clermont, even if nothing is yet decided for the season.
Clear goals
Finding Europe and ideally the Champions League is a very big goal, but everyone wants to achieve this within the Club. But before thinking about it, I first want to see how the team behaves during this first match in Clermont.
From what I saw in training, I am confident that the players will develop an attractive style of football, the one I want for AS Monaco. And even if I have great respect for Clermont, which had a historic season last year, the best in its history, finishing in eighth place, we want to bring back a result.
A clear philosophy of play
We conceded a few goals during pre-season (13), but this is because we played many games (8), but also because we faced big teams like Arsenal or Bayern. We know that the team had defensive problems last year, and we want to solve them. The arrivals of Philipp and Mohammed are steps in this direction. I want my team to press high up the field and play aggressively. This is being implemented, and absorbed by the players.
On Soungoutou Magassa
For me, against Leeds, he was the best player on the team. I was missing players in defence, and he started in that position, even though he didn’t play long. Against Arsenal too, he showed very good abilities in this position, he is a young talent who has a lot of quality.
On the team’s youth
I like to look at the performance or the talent, but I don’t look at the age of the players. We have to find a balance between getting young players to play and achieving our goals. I like to play young people from the Academy, and we have a lot of them here with Eliesse Ben Seghir, Maghnes Akliouche, Chrislain Matsima or Eliot Matazo, who has an aggressive style of play.
About Takumi Minamino
I’ve known Takumi since he was only 20, when he played in Salzburg. I then saw him develop with Liverpool. He’s a fantastic player. He has proven in recent games that he can really help the team make a difference, and I think he can really thrive in this system. I think it’s easier for a player to adapt when he already knows the coach.
Les buts de Takumi Minamino et Wissam Ben Yedder en vidéo 🎥#FCBASM pic.twitter.com/IKQbsOyOkD
— AS Monaco 🇲🇨 (@AS_Monaco) August 7, 2023
