Record low crowd watch Barca struggle

Barcelona's Sergio Aguero, centre, leaves the pitch after sustaining an injury against Alaves. Photo: Albert Gea/Reuters

November 01 2021 02:30 AM

Barcelona’s miserable La Liga campaign continued as they were held to a 1-1 home draw by lowly Alaves on Saturday in their first match since the sacking of coach Ronald Koeman.

Barca’s third consecutive league game without a win left them ninth in the standings, eight points behind Real Madrid, who led the table yesterday after the title chasers had all played 11 games.

After a cagey first half, Dutch forward Memphis Depay put Barcelona ahead four minutes after the interval with a fine strike from outside the penalty area. The lead lasted only three minutes, however, as Alaves winger Luis Rioja conjured up an excellent equaliser, playing a neat one-two with Joselu before rounding Barca ’keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen to score.

Barcelona also suffered injury blows when striker Sergio Aguero and defender Gerard Pique were forced off ahead of their Champions League clash at Dynamo Kyiv tomorrow.

After defeats by Real Madrid and Rayo Vallecano which led to Koeman sacking, only 37,000 fans turned up at the Camp Nou to see the first game under caretaker coach Sergi Barjuan, the club’s worst attendance for 20 years.

Meanwhile, Atletico Madrid prepared for their Wednesday night clash with Liverpool with a 3-0 win over Real Betis thanks to goals from Yannick Carasco and Joao Felix either side of a German Pezzella own-goal.

In Italy, meanwhile, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was on the scoresheet and won a penalty for AC Milan as they ran out 2-1 winners away to Roma in Jose Mourinho’s first home defeat in Serie A. Milan finished with 10 men after Theo Hernandez picked up two yellow cards, suspending him from next week’s derby with Inter.

Napoli sit on top of the Serie A table ahead of Milan on goal difference after a 1-0 win at bottom-end side Salernitana, Piotr Zieliński’s goal good enough on a night that both sides had a man sent off in the second half.