El Assy: ‘I'm sure we'll reach an agreement with Rubi soon’

Mohamed El Assy has held a press conference at the Power Horse Stadium to assess the January transfer window and announce important Club news. The UD Almeria managing director has revealed that co-captain César de la Hoz will depart next season: ‘I get on really well with César. We tried three times to get his renewal done but his representative, who is the same as Pacheco's, and us haven’t reached an agreement. The player can continue training and playing, but this will be his last season with UD Almería though,’ he explained.

Rubi’s Contract Renewal 

The UD Almeria CEO has expressed the harmonious relationship between the Club and head coach Rubi with an eye to a possible contract extension: ‘We have a close relationship with the head coach and we’re already planning for next season. Things are good. We’ll surely reach an agreement soon. We’ve talked about new players, pre-season planning over the last months and we haven't had time but, from now on, we'll talk to him,’ he explained to the media. He also added: ‘We’re very happy with him and Rubi is also happy with us. We achieved great goals together and we plan to continue like this.’

January Transfer Window

UD Almería have signed two new players in this January transfer window and Mohamed El Assy has argued that more additions were actually not necessary: ’We did a good job last summer and we don’t need many players at the minute because a good job was done before. We’re okay with those signings. I’m glad that we’ve signed Luís Suárez and Diego Mariño because we spotted them in 2020.’ Regarding the transfer of keeper Pacheco, El Assy has also expressed the following: ‘Pacheco arrived as a free agent player a few months ago and without playing, we’ve reached a good agreement for the Club.’

Latest News

Mohamed has provided the journalists with fresh information about other interesting objectives set by UD Almería. The FIFA medical centre ‘will be up and running shortly because it’s almost finished. We estimate that it can be ready by the end of March,’ Mohamed said. The newly refurbished ‘Bribón de la Habana’ venue located in the neighbouring town of Aguadulce is also about to open its doors: ‘It’ll open at the end of February when we’ll be playing host to FC Barcelona.’
To top it off, El Assy has highlighted ‘the second phase of remodelling the Stadium is about to be undertaken and we believe that it’ll be finished next season.’

Also, he admitted the lack of official merchandising in the Club’s official store either: ‘We’ve spoken to Castore and new products are arriving this week. We need to improve that so that the store has more UD Almeria products on sale for our fans,’ he acknowledged.

First Half of the Season

Regarding the first stage of the LaLiga, the UD Almeria CEO pointed out: ‘we managed to bag more than 20 points and I've got the feeling that we can play even better and hopefully get more points in the reverse fixtures.’