Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman was in a resigned temper after his facet had been outclassed and crushed 3-0 by Bayern Munich within the Champions League on Tuesday, saying followers wanted to be reasonable concerning the group’s present plight.
A deflected purpose from Thomas Mueller gave Bayern a deserved lead within the first half earlier than Robert Lewandowski struck twice after the break to inflict one other painful European defeat on Barca after thrashing the Catalans 8-2 in August final 12 months.
The Dutch coach pointed to the group’s damage issues together with the absences of forwards Ousmane Dembele, Ansu Fati, Martin Braithwaite and Sergio Aguero and revealed Jordi Alba had performed regardless of being in poor health the night time earlier than the match.
“You have to be realistic in life. Our young players showed we have a future and we have a lot of players to come back from injuries. It is what it is,” Koeman advised a information convention.
“We know we’re missing a lot of players in attack and we have to wait a few weeks to have more options and more speed going forward. I don’t want to look for excuses but everyone knows the problems we had with the players who were unavailable.”
Barca didn’t have a single shot on course over the 90 minutes and whereas Bayern had been capable of convey on skilled internationals equivalent to Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman from the bench, Koeman hauled on three youngsters in the hunt for a response.
“It’s very tough to play against a team like Bayern when you don’t have much speed going forward. We have to accept it and keep working. And we have to recognise the team we were up against,” he added.
“To do harm towards a group like Bayern it’s a must to be at your highest and it’s a must to admit it when the opposite group is best. But I’m just a little uninterested in speaking about the identical factor, in just a few weeks the group will likely be completely different as a result of we’ll have extra gamers out there and we will likely be fitter.
“Bayern are one of the favourites to win the Champions League and soon enough we ran into problems. We were a little unlucky with their first goal but in the second half they proved they are a better team than us right now.”
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ