Simeone: Griezmann´s future is in his hands

Diego Simeone again paid tribute to Antoine Griezmann after the forward’s double sealed victory for Atletico Madrid over Getafe at the Vicente Calderon.

The France international scored after four minutes and wrapped up the 2-0 win in stoppage time on Tuesday to take his goalscoring tally up to five in 2015-16.

Simeone has been impressed with Griezmann’s progress and said his future was completely dependent on the player himself. 

“He is in a very good moment,” the Argentine head coach said of the 24-year-old.

“He has grown a huge amount and is a very important player for the team. His future will depend just on him.”

The victory was far from straightforward, with Getafe enjoying much of the play in between Griezmann’s two goals and missing a golden opportunity to equalise through Pedro Leon.

Simeone hailed the impact of Tiago and Jackson Martinez, who both came off the substitutes’ bench in the second half and changed the momentum of the game before playing a part in the crucial second goal.

“Tiago is a very important player for us, he is the brains of our team. He interprets what the team needs and that is a quality that improves with age,” added Simeone.

“When he entered the pitch, the team changed and stopped suffering. We improved from that moment and had more control. We are happy with the squad we have and it is clear that it is very difficult to have two Tiagos.

“[Martinez] entered the pitch and did very well. He participated in assisting the goal for Griezmann and is a player who works with enthusiasm who will try to meet the expectations placed upon him.”

Atletico have now won four of their opening five La Liga matches and sit level on points with champions Barcelona, who have a game in hand against Celta Vigo on Wednesday.

“There were different parts to the game,” continued Simeone. “We scored quite fast and played a lot of the game facing the other way.

“We did not find solutions to close the game in the middle and they even had their goal chances but the team improved so much in the last part of the game.”