Barcelona coach Hansi Flick insists his crew can deal with an elevated workload and that he'll make no excuses regardless of having to cope with a prolonged damage listing however has joined a rising listing of high-profile footballing names calling on UEFA and FIFA to make alterations to a packed schedule.
Barça opened the season with 5 successive wins in LaLiga earlier than tasting defeat for the primary time underneath Flick towards Monaco within the Champions League in midweek.
The return of European soccer brings two video games per week for Barça, which can take a look at the depth of their small squad within the coming weeks, beginning with Sunday's league recreation at unbeaten Villarreal.
“When we started the season I said no excuses and we have no excuses,” Flick mentioned in a information convention on Saturday. “Every third or fourth day we have matches, but I think we are able to manage it.
“The gamers have a giant, massive load so it is good to produce other gamers, new legs, recent legs on the pitch.
“We'll manage it [at Villarreal] and I'm sure that everyone brings their best performance. We have a team and I think we showed in the matches in LaLiga how good we can play.”
The soccer calendar has been within the highlight this week since Manchester City midfielder Rodri steered gamers are contemplating putting due to the quantity of matches they're being requested to play.
Barça are certainly one of many groups affected by accidents in the beginning of the marketing campaign, with Ronald Araújo, Andreas Christensen, Marc Bernal, Gavi, Frenkie de Jong, Fermín López and Dani Olmo all at present sidelined.
“They have to take care — UEFA and FIFA — about the players,” Flick mentioned. “For the players, it's not the best situation. We all love football, love good performance, so if you want the quality on the highest level, I think we have to reduce it.
“We have seven gamers out [injured]. I by no means depend these gamers as a result of I give attention to the gamers who can play, however what I see from Frenkie he is doing properly, we're taking good care of him as a result of the state of affairs was not simple — I can say the identical to Gavi.
“So what I see I'm really happy with this, I see them all in the rondo [passing drills], it's good. They need time, we take care about them.”
In addition to the accidents, Barça shall be with out Ferran Torres at Villarreal as he serves a suspension for getting despatched off within the final match, however Flick says Pedri and Marc Casadó will each be accessible regardless of lacking coaching on Saturday.
Meanwhile, goalkeeper Diego Kochen, who was known as up by the United States earlier this month, shall be out for round a month, ruling him out of rivalry for the UMSNT's fixtures towards Panama and Mexico in October, the primary underneath new coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Despite the absences, Flick is trying ahead to going through a Villarreal facet who've received three and drawn two of their first outings in LaLiga.
“We want to play football,” Flick mentioned. “I know we lost the match against Monaco, but today what I showed [the players], how we defended with nine outfield players in 4-4-1, was really good.
“We present them how we would like to handle them towards an excellent crew in Villarreal, it is one thing to do with the self-worth the gamers have.
“This is what I like in Spanish football, every team can play football, every team loves to have the ball, every player loves to have the ball. This is what I love about our team, everyone knows the game, which position, which space they have to go in.”
Flick additionally defended goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen, who got here in for criticism after the Monaco loss as a result of his brief go led to the dismissal of Eric García within the tenth minute.
“I think it's one of the strengths from Marc, not only to save the ball but also with the ball, when he have the ball on the feet,” he mentioned.
“This is one of his strengths, this is also our style of play, we want to build up not only with the long ball, we want to play football and it starts from him.
“Maybe there was a mistake, but it surely's regular, you make errors, I make errors, it is regular. We have to analyse it and hopefully we give the gamers the proper order for subsequent time but it surely's prior to now and we're trying ahead to the following match.”
