Eibar coach Mendilibar was impressed with Barcelona’s defensive play against his team on Sunday despite Messi grabbing the headlines . His side played Barcelona on Sunday night and it was another masterclass from the little magician The forward helped Barcelona rout Eibar 4-0 scoring a brace and extending Barca’s unbeaten run to 36 games in the process.
It was a magisterial display from the Ballon d’Or winner as he mesmerised his opponents with some sublime through balls and mazy dribbles. And the Eibar coach was in awe of his class with words of high praise for the Argentine saying, “When Messi is playing it's impossible, he creates goals out of nothing”.
Barcelona scored two goals in the first half with Messi’s wonderful chip pass to Suarez opening up the defence who provided Munir with a tap in for. And four minutes before half-time the Argentine went on one of his brilliant dribbles to put them 2-0 ahead in the game.
Mendilibar was critical of his team’s performance after the match and expressed how difficult it was to come back from two goals down stating,“From 0-2 down it’s very difficult. You fight and you work hard, but it’s really tough from there.”
Despite all the attacking play that Barcelona are known for Mendilibar was even more impressed with their defensive work considering the MSN trio are excluded from this responsibility for most periods of the game saying, “What amazes me most is their defensive work. They can defend with six of seven, with the three left up front”, said the manager.
The coach must have done his homework on his much superior opponents but was still amazed by their play when seeing them up close.“I wasn’t surprised by Barça, well, to then see them up close and see what they do....”.
The 54-year-old claimed that the Catalans are the best team in the league and are far better than anyone else saying, “They never mis-control the ball. They’re superior to all the other teams.”
Luis Enrique not getting carried away
Barcelona romped home to another victory in La Liga and maintained their enormous 12 point advantage over Real Madrid. Many have now declared the title race as finished, considering the huge gap in terms of points.
But Luis Enrique has heeded a warning of complacency and has insisted the race is not yet over. In his press conference, he said, “We won't get distracted by thinking we're champions before we are. There are 30 points left to play for, the team knows that”.
The Catalans are 8 points ahead of Atletico Madrid with 10 games left to play in the season.
