Barcelona were expected to face problems after the departure of their club legend Lionel Messi. But President Joan Laporta did try to cool the nerves at his club as he assured that the Blaugrana outfit will adjust to life after Messi and will soon win trophies at the highest level.
Moving on, Barcelona were looking forward to picking up all three points against Cadiz at the Estadio Nuevo Mirandilla. But after 90 mins of intense football, the visitors received nothing but disappointment against the Andalusian side.
On Thursday, the Catalans were off to a slow start as they weren’t able to threaten the Cadiz backline. The hosts, too, had nothing much to offer in terms of attacking chances as they were confined to their half. Although, Memphis Depay had an excellent chance to provide the lead to his side but was denied by Jeremias Ledesma.
‘Lifeless’ Barcelona attack fails to break the shackles
The second half of the game did not bring much joy to the visitors as they were unable to stitch proper movement in their final third. Striker Luuk de Jong was probably the most ineffective player for Koeman’s side as the Dutchman failed to head the crosses and was largely invisible in his first league start.
Just when Barcelona were hoping to make some progress up front, they were handed a big blow as Frenkie De Jong received a second yellow for his clumsy tackle on Espino. With 10 men on the pitch, the Catalans were just not able to pick up momentum in the latter half of the game.
However, in the dying minutes of the game, both sides did try to grab a winner but unfortunately had fired blanks in their attacking halves. Manager Ronald Koeman was in the midst of controversy as he was shown a red card for protesting on Busquet’s yellow card. After the game, the Dutchman was furious with the match officials. In an interview with Barca TV, he said :
"In this country, they send you off for nothing!"
Nonetheless, the former Everton man seemed happy with the performance of his side as he believed that his team played well for the major part of the match. He went on to say :
"It’s very difficult. You have to have a lot of creativity here and in this game maybe we were missing the last pass. It was a game where we thought we would score but if you don’t score, you don’t win games"
Barcelona’s next trip will be a huge decider for Koeman
For now, Barcelona are sitting seventh in the league table and are now slated to face Levante on Sunday. The Blaugrana outfit will have to put up a solid display at home as fans will expect the team to bounce back from their winless run. Moreover, it will be an important fixture for the Barca manager as he has to churn out a positive result in order to keep his job at the club.