Guardiola revealed that the squad were “very satisfied” with the result against Sporting and stressed the importance of taking the points from such tough games- “you really have to fight for these points”, whilst not letting the team’s top spot take on too much weight- “there’s still a long way to go”.

Hard to win at Molinón

Guardiola praised Sporting, who always seem to make things tough for Barça: “we were up against a very good Sporting side, who put a lot of men behind the ball, sticking together and leaving very little space. It’s always hard to win here, Sporting have some very proud and young players and really fight. What’s more, we came into the game after a long trip and this is a very difficult ground to win at. Even so, they had very few chances to score”.

The boss also referred to Sporting manager Manuel Preciado: “you just have to see how his team behaves. I believe you always have to look at the players and I can see their enthusiasm which is always a sign that they are with the manager. This team is alive and Manolo knows better than anybody how to manage these situations. It doesn’t matter where he is, you can always recognise his teams. Any big team coming here will have to fight really hard”.

“Messi never dives”

Guardiola was also quizzed about the possible penalty committed by De las Cuevas on Messi and although he admitted he didn’t have a clear view of the incident, he insisted: “everybody should know that if Leo is on the ground, it’s never because he’s dived. He never cheats and he never dives”.