Luis Enrique refuses to blame team as Barca lose again

Andy West 05:47 18/04/2016
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  • Pressure rising: Luis Enrique.

    Luis Enrique refused to criticise his Barcelona team despite seeing them slip to a third consecutive defeat with Sunday night’s 2-1 home loss to Valencia.

    The defeat means Barca have lost four of their last five games and allowed a nine point advantage in La Liga to dwindle away to nothing in the space of just three weeks.

    With Atletico Madrid now level with his team and Real Madrid just one point behind, Enrique’s men are in danger of committing one of the greatest collapses of modern times, but he is remaining steadfastly upbeat.

    “Today is not a day to criticise the players, but to praise them,” he insisted. “Football is full of surprises and I salute my players for the way they have confronted adversity.”

    In contrast to some of their other recent setbacks, Sunday night’s encounter saw Barca create plenty of chances but a combination of poor finishing and excellent saves by Valencia keeper Diego Alves left them with only Lionel Messi’s goal – the 500th of his career – to show for their efforts.

    And Enrique rued his team’s luck as he said: “We deserved to win but we have not been lucky. We needed to score the first goal and after Valencia went ahead it was more difficult. We just lacked the fortune to win the game.

    “Maybe we played more with our hearts than our heads in the second half, but we still created four or five very good chances.”

    Barca are still ahead of their closest rivals thanks to their head to head superiority, and Enrique is taking comfort from the fact that his team still control their own destiny.

    He added: “We have a marvellous challenge. We have five games left, and if we win them all we will be champions. It will be difficult but if any team can win five games in a row, it is this Barca.”

    The outcome was a stark contrast of Valencia’s previous visit to the Nou Camp, when they were hammered 7-0 in the Copa del Rey during Gary Neville’s ill-fated reign.

    And new boss Pako Ayestaran believes the change in fortunes can be explained more by his team’s improvement than a deterioration in the Catalan team.

    “Valencia have changed more than Barca,” he said. “They could easily have won this game – it could have been 3-2, 4-3. But Valencia are very different now.”

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