FCBARCELONA.CAT

21.02.2009 23:16

Guardiola: “We’ll get back up again”

Vanessa Forns

After their first home league defeat this season, Pep Guardiola is sure the squad will get back up again, dust themselves down and get on with the job.

The Barça coach said that, logically, the players were “affected and upset” by their defeat at the hands of Espanyol. Yet he also felt sure that the players will get over it: “We’ll get back up again, dust ourselves down and get on with the job. I’m in no doubt.”
“Nobody said it would be easy, but we’re still in a strong position. We’ve lost a game, but we still have a good lead”, he added.

The difficulty of winning the league

In this way, the Barça coach reminded us that it has always been difficult to win the league: “We have to win a lot of games and continue fighting till the end. This defeat came when it came. Now we have to get back up and face Madrid next week. The league will eventually be ours”.

A hard game

Guardiola congratulated Espanyol on their victory, and added that the game lacked fluidity owing to the number of stoppages: “the game lacked rhythm. It’s difficult to achieve this when there are so many fouls”.

Keita’s sending-off key

Guardiola was reticent to criticise the referee, but he admitted that Keita’s sending-off had changed everything: “It’s not my job to judge referees. When we lose it’s our fault. The referee already knows what he has done.”

Abidal’s injury

Finally, Guardiola expressed his regret over Abidal’s injury: “His injury is really bad news. But we have Puyol, Sylvinho, players from Barça Atletic. I’m in no doubt we’ll keep going forward”.