Ronald Koeman has admitted that, despite the difficulties between Lionel Messi, Barcelona and LaLiga, he was still surprised when he saw the Argentine leave the club.
Koeman admits that Messi left big gap (goals and assist)
The hole left by Messi is a vast one, as the six-time Ballon d’Or scored 672 goals and provided 305 assists in 778 games for Barcelona. “I knew there was a difficult situation between the club and Leo Messi and LaLiga to have the possibilities to keep Messi at the club,” Koeman said in an interview with the newspapers. It takes a long time, but I was also surprised by the day and the moment that I heard that he was finished playing for Barcelona. And I knew the financial situation of the club made it more difficult. I think it was difficult because we are not just talking about any player. We are talking about Leo Messi, the best player in the world through a lot of seasons, and we were all disappointed that he will not play for us this season. But OK, you have to change fast because you don’t stay disappointed with the new season starting. You have to understand it was for a few days a difficult situation.”
Barca has to do differently in the attacking phrase
Koeman recognizes that Barcelona will have some issues when it comes to scoring goals without Messi, but he is confident that the return of players from injury will help as the Blaugrana look to get more goals from other areas. Of course we will have more difficulties to score goals,” Koeman added. “Messi scored 30 goals last season, so other players need to bring more and take the next step and it’s more about the team now than individual players. It’s not always one player; you have to do it together. Hopefully we get players back from injury like Ansu Fati and Coutinho and then we still have a strong squad. We will work harder; we will do more to achieve what people expect from us.