ESTEBAN GRANERO, the new Real Sociedad signing, sats his side can shrug off the loss of their key players Carlos Vela and Antoine Griezmann to eliminate Aberdeen from Europe.
The Basque side are still adjusting to the £28.5m sale of the French forward Griezmann, while the former Arsenal striker Vela is almost certainly out of tomorrow's first leg in San Sebastian with an ankle injury. Sociedad, though, secured the services of the former Queens Park Rangers midfielder Granero this week, despite suffering an injury hit campaign when he made just four appearances last season.
"We have to view the game against Aberdeen as the most important match of the season," said Granero. "That's the only way we can take this game. It is so important to us.
"Yes, we will be without some important players, but we think the quality in the squad should be good enough.
"I felt the warmth of the fans last season and as soon as I knew Sociedad wanted to sign me again, there was only one place I was going.
"Aberdeen will be a tough game - we expect a physical encounter against the Scots.
"But it would be a perfect way for me to reintroduce myself to the fans by taking a big win back to the second leg in Scotland."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article