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Luis Enrique has a busy month of pre-match interviews ahead of him.
The Barcelona coach attended his usual press conference to preview the next match, and this time, he let everyone know that he's not taking Almería, a team who's currently facing relegation and has won only two of its last twelve La Liga games, for granted. This is as big of a game as any other, at least in the manager's mind.
From Barça's website, here's the highlights of his conference:
"If we want to win the league, then we have to make sure we win this game. We’ll be taking this game as seriously as any other, knowing that we have to get things right if we want to be sure of the three points.
"It’s a matter of getting more points than the team in second place and doing that always starts with the next match, which in this case is the one we have on Wednesday. Anything beyond that is mere speculation. We just have to play a good game tomorrow, making sure that we create plenty of danger and don’t allow them to do the same."
On Sergi Barjuan becoming manager of Almeria
"He’s a friend and I am often in contact with him. I am very glad that he’s been offered this opportunity and I hope he makes the most of it. But only from Thursday onwards!"
"Managerial changes are a way of stimulating a team and its players. That could be dangerous for us."
"Sergi only has one training session before the game, and that’s not much. He’ll certainly have things to say to his players, but it’s difficult enough to get changes to take effect after six months, so we can’t expect him to achieve much in just one day."
On the team’s form
"We’re in a privileged position right now but that doesn’t mean the league will end like this. We’ll still be looking to make improvements. If we can keep this up, then it will be that much harder for the other teams."
"This is the situation we wanted to be in. We wanted to be in contention for every title. Not just to be in contention but also to go on and win them. And that’s even more difficult."
On Mathieu
"I don’t think you can say that his transfer has been paid for on the strength of scoring two goals. We knew all about him because he’s been in Spanish football for some time and we always considered him a great signing."
"I judge Jérémy on what he has done all season, and his performances have been better than good. My opinion hasn’t changed because he’s scored a couple of goals, which was one of the least important things that we brought him here to do."
"The technical staff made some brilliant signings last summer. All the players that joined us have been doing exceptionally well."
Source: FCBarcelona.com
