The draw against Mallorca is seemingly being felt sharply by the players and coach of FC Barcelona, not so much because of the dropped points but particularly because of the errors from the team that could have been avoided.
Xavi rued these offensive and defensive errors as he spoke to the media after the match, and Fermin Lopez, who equalized the score for Barcelona, also mentioned these errors as the reason that kept the Catalans from taking the full points from this match.
Romeu rues team’s mistakes
Oriol Romeu, one of the latest additions to the Barcelona squad for this season, also spoke to the media after the match as highlighted by SPORT, and once again, he highlighted the team’s mistakes in this match:
“We’ve suffered more than we wanted. We need to improve in these matches where the rival defends deep because we’re giving away too many opportunities.”
Romeu went on to identify one aspect that can help Barcelona avoid the prospect of getting exposed to their opponents’ attacks in every match:
“Allowing counterattacks with such ease makes us cover a lot of ground and takes away our possession in the opponent’s half. We need to improve that aspect in the upcoming matches.”
Unconcerned with the overturned penalty
One of the major talking points from the last match was the penalty to Barcelona that was overturned by VAR. Both Xavi and Mallorca coach, Javier Aguirre, agreed that it should have been a penalty, but Romeu was not too much concerned with this issue:
“I haven’t seen the possible penalty on Lamine Yamal. If the referee didn’t call it, we have to respect that.”
Thus, as Romeu highlighted, Barcelona need to gain greater control of the ball in upcoming matches to avoid the kind of goals from counters that they have conceded in the last two matches.