Davinson outlines a pathway through Europe

Davinson Sanchez knows what it takes to progress in the Europa League.

The defender may have only played in one edition of the competition but, in that season, he helped Ajax reach the final – and this time, as we prepare to kick-off our European campaign against Lokomotiv Plovdiv on Thursday night (kick-off 5pm UK), he's determined to go one step further.

It was in the 2016/17 season that the centre-back helped the Dutch giants reach the showpiece final, playing 12 out of their 15 games - they ultimately fell to Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United. Impressively, despite having played in just five such campaigns in his career to date, that was one of three continental finals that our number six has been involved in - the 2016 Copa Libertadores, 2017 Europa League and the 2019 Champions League.

With that considerable experience in mind as we begin our Europa League campaign in Bulgaria on Thursday, the Colombian international explained that the only way progress is made in these competitions is with ‘care and responsibility’.

“In the experience I have of the Europa League, the competition is a bit harder than the Champions League because there’s a lot of games to play and because of the distance you have to travel,” Davinson discussed.

“Yet, it’s also a competition that, if you give the care and responsibility to it that you need, you can be one of the teams that can be fighting for the title. So, yes, it’s hard because of the amount of games but with care, you can have more chance of being there in the final stages of the competition.

“And every stage of this campaign will be important - you just have to keep going and be consistent.

“The coaching staff are doing everything to prepare us, so we are able to compete. We need to take care of ourselves, but we also need to be ready to do everything that the manager needs of us. We can’t be crazy, we have to be careful in the situation and take it game by game.”