Neymar, Suarez and Messi have struggled for goals in this time and the Brazilian became involved in a spat with celebrating Valencia players at the final whistle of Barca’s 2-1 defeat to Valencia on Sunday.
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“I think we have criticised ourselves when it has been necessary, but today is not a day to criticise my players, it is a day to congratulate them”, he added after Sunday’s game. We can’t win every single game by playing anyway we want, we have to have order and we have to be organized.
It was a battle to finish as Valencia scourge Barcelona 1 – 2 at the Camp Nou to ensure Luis Enrique’s men drop more points, as Atletico Madrid level with Real Madrid trailing with just one point.
Barcelona must reverse an wonderful loss of form to win all five of their remaining La Liga games to be assured of retaining their title, starting with a trip to Deportivo la Coruna tomorrow.
“We need to win the last five games and I know we can do it”.
“Just imagine if we’d given up?”
“If we play like this we’ll win the league, I’m convinced of that”.
“We have to remain strong”, Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said.
The Blaugrana also suffered European disappointment last week, as they crashed out of the Champions League to Atletico.
“With our start we should have scored the opening goal, but Valencia had some luck, and then it was more hard for us”.
There are five games left in La Liga, with Barcelona’s run-in seeing them host struggling Sporting Gijon and city rivals Espanyol and go to both Betis and Granada.
Barcelona have now lost three consecutive La Liga matches, the last time that happened was in 2003 under Louis Van Gaal, strangely Luis Enrique was his captain.
“I can not see the future, but I am sure, certain, that we are not depending on anyone else”.
“We hope it’s only a strain and I hope he’ll be with us on Saturday (against Rayo Vallecano)”, said Zidane.
Defender Gerard Pique also gave an optimistic message, saying the team had played better against Valencia than in losses to Atletico, Real Sociedad and Real Madrid.
The team’s seventh win in eight league games put it alongside Barcelona on 76 points.
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Analysis shows the the Barcelona player has a tendency to score late in games, taking advantage of exhausted teams and scoring when matches have already been decided. “I don’t like to see people saying we are going to win everything”.
