Ronald Koeman spoke to the press on Tuesday as Barcelona prepare to take on Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League at the Camp Nou.
The Barcelona boss spoke about the match, Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s fitness and offered his thoughts on Quique Setien’S recent comments about Lionel Messi being “difficult to manage.”
Koeman on Barca’s aims
The objectives are always the same. To play good football, to create goalscoring opportunities and, especially home matches in the Champions League, to win. We are doing well, we have six points and we hope to keep along his path.
Koeman on Kiev’s problems
We know Kiev have some Covid problems. They have done more tests this morning and are waiting for the results. The only thing we can do is prepare for the match and I hope we play the game tomorrow.
Koeman on Ter Stegen
He joined the group almost a week ago. He seems really good. He’s been out for a little while now but he’s back and working well. Tomorrow is our last training session before the match and we’ll decide the squad. We have to wait until tomorrow.
Koeman on signing a forward in January
Everybody knows my position about this and the two positions we’re missing but it all depends on the economic situation of the club in January, so we have to wait. I don’t want to force it because knowing the situation I don’t want to push. if it’s not possible then we work with what we’ve got.
Koeman on Setien’s comments
Everyone has their opinion and I respect that. Leo is a really good player, for me the best in the world. He’s there, ambitious every day, with his winning character. He is not a player that I have difficulty managing in the team. To me Messi is the captain and I speak with him every week about stuff on the pitch and the dressing room to have a good relationship with him. I don’t agree with what he said but every coach is different. I respect his opinion. If that’s what he says, that’s how it is for him.
We are working with him. He needs to improve some aspects to play in the No. 6. We have several players who can play that position, like Alena, so we are working with him and he knows he has Busquets, De Jong, Pjanic ahead of him. So he needs to work hard. He’ll get his moment to be called up. At the moment it’s complicated.
Koeman on Konrad de la Fuente
He is part of the team, he was good in pre-season, but there is a lot of competition in his position, so we prefer him to play with the second team so that he adds minutes, but I am very happy with his work.
Follow our socials Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google News.