

It appears that the local press from Madrid and the rest of Spain, is pushing Diego Simeone to leave Atletico Madrid. They didn't like the constant flirting with Internazionale Milano, nor the farewell he made after the Champions League final that the players also didn't appreciate. But the players got past that fairly quickly, they are fully backing their manager by now and don't even care about what the media are saying about him.
Talking to the press, midfielder Koke even thinks that all of the press is against the manager, he said: "He has a contract and it looks as though he'll see it out. The team is fine; we won, which is what we had to do. It wasn't an easy game, Las Palmas know what they are doing – they play attractive football and we played very well. We had a lot of chances in the first-half but it just didn't want to go in. But Saul's incredible goal gave us the confidence to win."
About the alleged problems between the coach and the players, Koke added: "No [there is no rift], not at all. We're fine, working hard. We've been doing the same thing for five years. At the end of the day you go through streaks - 2016 was a historic one for the club and I hope 2017 will be as well. We need a little bit of luck. We've played well during games but we haven't been fortunate. But there's still a long way to go, we're halfway through the season and we're not in that bad shape. We're six points off Barcelona in second. We need to be more consistent in the league, as we have been in the Champions League. Our objective is to finish third and if we do better than that, that'd be great."
Photo credit: Atletico Madrid