Llorente ready for Trabzonspor test

Athletic Bilbao's Spain international striker, Fernando Llorente insists he has got more than the bit between his teeth ahead of his side's vital Europa League qualifying game in Turkey. Last Thursday saw Llorente miss a hatful of clear-cut chances as Athletic were only able to draw 0-0 at home to Trabzonspor, in a game they dominated from start to finish. The result now leaves Athletic with a difficult trip to Istanbul, where they can expect to face a hostile atmosphere from the passionate Turkish fans. Failure to reach the group stage of the competition would be a major disappointment for the club which finished last season in sixth place in the Spanish BBVA Primera Liga and a setback for new coach Marcelo Bielsa, who replaced Joaquin Caparros over the summer. Llorente promises that he and his team-mates are prepared for a battle in the Turk Telecom Stadium. "We know that we are going to have to withstand a lot of pressure from the fans, but we are going to go with a knife between our teeth and we are not going to change our style of play, because we are able to do things a lot better than we did last week," he said in the newspaper El Correo Vasco. Llorente believes that having kept a clean sheet in Bilbao gives his side an advantage, because if they are able to score away from home it would leave Trabzonspor needing to score twice in order to knock them out of the competition. "Maybe if we had won the first leg 2-1 we would have thought we had done the job, but a 1-0 defeat would have sent us out of the competition, now we know what we have to do. The fact that Trabzonspor are playing at home means they will have to take more risks and they could be weaker in defense, as they won't be able to close things up at the back as they did in Bilbao," said Llorente.