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Difficult day for Luis Enrique despite Barca win

Xinhua, February 20, 2017 Adjust font size:

Sunday was a difficult day for FC Barcelona coach Luis Enrique, although his side beat Leganes 2-1 to remain second on the Liga Santander table.

The narrow win, which came thanks to a 90th minute penalty from Leo Messi against the side with the smallest budget in the league did nothing to dispel the feeling of crisis at Camp Nou.

Barca needed to bounce back and win following their 4-0 humiliation to Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League, but they needed to win in style, not in the style of a team that looked to be adrift without a rudder and with Andre Gomes, the man bought last summer to give direction to the club, again floundering and singled out for criticism by supporters.

Barcelona President Josep Bartomeu may have given the coach, who is out of contract at the end of the current campaign, his full backing in a pre-match interview on Spanish TV saying Luis Enrique was "the coach we want and we are happy with him," but that opinion was not shared by the majority of the crowd on the ground.

Although the supporters in Barca's "animation stand" chanted Luis Enrique's name on several occasions during the game, those chants were met by boos and whistles from other areas of the stands on the day the stadium registered its lowest attendance of the campaign.

"I don't think there is any sense in booing your own players," said the Barca coach in reference to the boos directed at Andre Gomes.

"What makes us stronger is for people to get behind us and I feel bad for Andre," he added.

However, Luis Enrique took a different view towards the criticism directed at himself.

"I understand that; it is why I am the coach and I can accept any criticism after what happened in Paris," he commented, before insisting that that attitude of his players was "better than in the two previous seasons. I convinced 100 percent that things will get better," he concluded.

Bartomeu also said on Sunday that talks over a new contract for the coach would be "in April." But unless things do get better, as Luis Enrique says they will, those talks could be brief. Enditem