After seeing their 18-game unbeaten run snap earlier this week at the hands of Manchester United, FC Barcelona suffered their second defeat in a row as UD Almeria secured a shock 1-0 win over the La Liga leaders.<\/p>\n
El Bilal Toure put the relegation-battling minnows ahead at the Power Horse Stadium in the first period. Bar\u00e7a huffed and puffed in search of a way back into the game but could not muster up enough clear-cut chances in the final third to equalise.<\/p>\n
With the result, the Blaugrana missed a golden opportunity to stretch their lead atop the table to ten points after Real Madrid were held to a draw last night by Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n
It was a disappointing display overall from Barcelona and speaking after the match, manager Xavi Hernandez admitted that he was very angry at the result, and termed the performance as the worst of the season by his side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was our worst match of the season. I\u2019m very pissed off. It was too difficult. We weren\u2019t there. We weren\u2019t inside the match,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Bar\u00e7a legend was honest in his assessment of the result, as he said: \u201cThere are no excuses today. We didn\u2019t deserve to win and we have to take responsibility. I\u2019m very pissed off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Xavi made as many as four changes to the starting XI today and explaining his decision to rotate, he added: \u201cWe noticed fatigue today. That\u2019s why we did so many rotations. The players were tired and it was clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to say sorry to the fans. What we saw today is inexcusable. I don\u2019t understand it,\u201d he said, apologising to the fans.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Xavi also took the responsibility for the result upon himself, saying: \u201cI am the person most responsible. We failed. Luckily we have a cushion of points in La Liga. I always said that it was going to be extremely difficult to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lacked passion in the first half. In the second half, we tried everything\u2026 3-4-3, Araujo as a striker\u2026 Nothing. It wasn\u2019t meant to be. It was not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further sending a warning to his players, the manager added: \u201cIf we don\u2019t change our mental chip now, it will cost us the league title.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early in the second half, Xavi received a yellow card from the referee for protesting a decision. It was his fifth booking of the season, meaning he will be suspended for the game against Valencia. Talking about it, the manager said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be suspended for the next match, and that\u2019s it. Sometimes I protest when I shouldn\u2019t. It\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opening up on the La Liga title race, Xavi added that his team will recover, but the road ahead will not be easy for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll recover, but we won\u2019t win La Liga comfortably. Nobody should think that. We\u2019re competing against Real Madrid, the current champions of La Liga and the Champions League.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking for positives from the outing, Xavi pointed at youngsters Pablo Torre and Angel Alarcon, who came on as late substitutes when Barcelona were chasing the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cPablo Torre and \u00c1ngel Alarc\u00f3n were good when they came on. Pablo is training well and he\u2019s ready to play. He tried to play inside with Lewandowski, but it was difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Discussing what went wrong for his team on the day, he added: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing else to do but self-criticism. We lacked the intensity of Almer\u00eda to win the match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After seeing their 18-game unbeaten run snap earlier this week at the hands of Manchester United, FC Barcelona suffered their second defeat in a row as UD Almeria secured a shock 1-0 win over the La Liga leaders. El Bilal Toure put the relegation-battling minnows ahead at the Power Horse Stadium in the first period. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":996,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}