The five-time Ballon d'Or winner has struggled with injuries and after returning as a second half substitute in the win over Deportivo La Coruna last weekend, Messi scored a hat-trick in Wednesday's victory against Pep Guardiola's Manchester City.
"Nobody doubted Messi," proclaimed the Asturian coach.
"Whoever doubted him is a bit naïve."
Much of the pre-match talk had been dominated by Pep Guardiola's return to the Camp Nou and although Luis Enrique came out on top, he admitted that there is still a way to go in terms of qualification.
"This isn't a signal of intent, it just three more points and I'm certain that they will pay us back in Manchester," he said.
"Many things happened that don't usually occur: injuries, red cards, two teams that play the same way, and all of that causes errors.
"It is a comprehensive result which makes us stronger," Luis Enrique explained.
City are such a garbage club.
ReplyDeleteGlad we hammered them.
Umtiti is god.
Good result.
ReplyDeleteI agree the scoreline is a bit misleading, we were hardly giving City trouble till the red.
The English media will probably rip apart Bravo despite the fact if not for him we could've been leading 2-0, 3-0.
Pep needs to figure things out here, he set up his team to create chances, but it seems no one can finish, at Barca he had Messi to finish, but he's not going to find him anywhere else.
Exactly. Our midfield was very underwhelming to say the least, it gave us almost no support going forward and very little cover defensively. Every time Busquets touches the ball I got nervous. We capitalized on City's mistakes and got rewarded, that's it.
ReplyDeleteI think under Luis Enrique our midfield has been sucking for several seasons. It is good that we play more counters now, but I'd really like to have a lot more control. People talked about our midfield being stacked, but none of the additions we had have solidified our midfield, so far.
Exactly. Our midfield was very underwhelming to say the least, it gave us almost no support going forward and very little cover defensively. Every time Busquets touches the ball I got nervous. We capitalized on City's mistakes and got rewarded, that's it.
ReplyDeleteI think under Luis Enrique our midfield has been sucking for several seasons. It is good that we play more counters now, but I'd really like to have a lot more control. People talked about our midfield being stacked, but none of the additions we had have solidified our midfield, so far.
Several good things to take from the game
ReplyDelete-gr8 result despite misleading
-Ter Stegan performing well and keeping things simple with his passing
-Umtiti performance and Mascherano managing to get back to his form
-We have gr8 depth,many injuries in the defense and we they held their own better than expected
-Busquets 2nd half performance was encouraging
The Negative is
-Midfield was shit
-We won this game by taking advantage of their mistakes,nothing wrong in that but some times we won't get that mistakes
Look, Messi barely presses and Iniesta is 33. Of course we have to suffer sometimes.
ReplyDeleteGL finding Iniesta quality that hustles like Rakitic.