Jules Kounde had to return back to the right-back position as FC Barcelona faced Deportivo Alaves last night. The Catalans came out of this match with a comfortable 3-1 victory, despite having to play the last twenty minutes with ten men.
While this was a convincing victory for the Blaugranes, one player who still remains far from his best is the defender Jules Kounde. The Frenchman was imprecise with the ball and was nearly punished for one of his mistakes when Guridi came close to scoring a goal for Alaves.
As SPORT has reported, he was one of the players who spoke to the media after the match, and analysed the match in detail in this interview. The defender highlighted Barcelona going ahead early in the match as one of the key reasons for this win:
“We know that this stadium is complicated. The first 30 minutes were good, and we managed to take the lead on the scoreboard. From there, they added more pressure, but in the end, we controlled the game.”
The Frenchman was clear that the last two victories gained by the team have nothing to do with Xavi’s announcement of leaving the club at the end of the season: “It has nothing to do with it; we don’t feel more liberated because of that.”
Kounde also highlighted one of the main reasons that he believed was keeping the team back this season, and which helped them win the title last season:
“The team was aware that we needed to recover what made us strong last year. We defended together and competed because we have talent in the team, but other teams also have talent and, in addition, they have soul. You have to have soul; to get three points here, you had to have soul, and we had it.”
Kounde ensured in this media talk that he feels very good, but reports indicate that Barcelona are clearly concerned with the form that the Frenchman is showing up to this point in the season. Hopefully, he can get back to his best for the upcoming matches, as he is one of the key players in Xavi’s squad.
