Barcelona manager Ronald Koeman has admitted that it is “very difficult” for his side to win this season’s La Liga. Koeman’s remarks came after the team was held to a 1-1 draw by Eibar here on Tuesday.
“I am realistic, it will be very difficult to be champions. Nothing is impossible, but you have to acknowledge the gap. Atletico looks very good to me, very strong, they don’t concede many goals,” Goal.com quoted Koeman as saying. Barcelona currently holds the sixth position on the La Liga table with 25 points, seven points shy of joint-leaders Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.
During the match, Kike scored the opening goal, putting Eibar ahead in the 57th minute. However, ten minutes later, Ousmane Dembele scored an equalizer and the match concluded on the same. Also, Barcelona was without their star player Lionel Messi during the clash.
Koeman feels it was the individual errors that cost them the points.
“You cannot say Barca plays better without Messi. He is a different player. In general terms, we played well. But individual errors cost us the points,” he said.
“We deserved to win, we did what was needed. [Eibar] only had one shot on goal. We created chances, but we didn’t score the penalty and then a defensive error… we played well, we worked hard and did enough to win, but this is happening to us far too often,” Koeman added.