Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman opened up on his aspect’s 1-1 draw with Athletic and admitted groups have much less worry of the Catalan giants now Lionel Messi shouldn’t be round. Barcelona managed to salvage a 1-1 draw away to Athletic Bilbao in La Liga. (Reuters Photo)HIGHLIGHTSBarcelona dropped their first factors of the 12 months after drawing at Athletic BilbaoRonald Koeman conceded that Lionel Messi’s absence is taking its tollMessi has joined PSG and dealing in the direction of making his much-anticipated debutBarcelona supervisor Ronald Koeman has admitted that the absence of Lionel Messi is felt on the Catalan membership after his group was held to a 1-1 draw at Athletic Bilbao. Koeman stated that the other sides are being bolder in opposition to his aspect now that they will not depend on Messi.
A thumping late strike from Memphis Depay cancelled out Inigo Martinez’s header to earn Barca some extent however Koeman admitted his group had been nonetheless keenly feeling the absence of their all-time high scorer and former captain, two weeks after he left Barca for Paris St Germain following 21 years on the membership.”I don’t like to keep talking about the same thing but we’re talking about the best player in the world and opponents are always more scared when Messi is around,” Koeman instructed reporters.”It’s also the same for us, if you give a pass to Messi, he normally doesn’t lose the ball. You can feel that he is not here any more. We all know it but we can’t change it.”Barca had gotten off to a robust begin of their first sport with out Messi by easing to a 4-2 win over Real Sociedad final week however got a chilly dose of actuality in opposition to an intense Athletic aspect, who overpowered and outrun them for many of the sport.”I think we ran into too many difficulties at the start of the game. They put us under a lot of pressure and did very well and we couldn’t play with any patience,” Koeman added.”But I have to highlight the attitude we showed after we went behind. I think the draw is fair because if you play like we did at a ground like this you’re always going to run into trouble. I have no complaints about the result.”Click right here for IndiaToday.in’s full protection of the coronavirus pandemic.