FCBARCELONA.CAT

20.02.2010 23:20

Guardiola: “We need to take a step forward”

Vanessa Forns

Despite the win over Racing, Pep Guardiola insisted that though he’d seen: “some good things”, the team “has to take a further step forward” if they want to win more titles.

The team bounced back well after last week’s slip up against Atletico Madrid and Guardiola stressed the •defensive rigour” of his team against Racing and taken a number of positives from the game, but stressed they also had to “take a further step forward”.

“We have to take another step forward, even though we did some things well. To compete at the highest level we must play with more simplicity and improve our circulation. We’ll have to play better in Germany to guarantee a result. It’s always important to get a win after you’ve lost a game, but I’d insist we now need to go one better - that wasn’t enough to win us the title”.

Ibra

Ibrahimovic was ruled out of the game before kick off as a precaution after noting a twinge on the knock he picked up last week and Guardiola explained: “his ankle was swollen up, but the doctors reckon it will go down soon. We’ll see how he gets on and see if we can get him fit for Tuesday”.

“We won, but without playing brilliantly”

Guardiola believes that “despite not playing very much” Barca “found ourselves ina good position. We had a lot of defensive rigour, but we missed rhythm when we had the ball – we won, but without playing brilliantly”.

Home grown talent

The game finished with 9 home grown players on the Barca team and Guardiola commented: “when I choose the team, I don’t think about where the players come from – they are all Barca players. It’s an interesting fact and it’s not easy to see so many home grown players in a team”.

Bojan

Bojan was singled out for praise by the boss: “I’m very happy with the work he put in, he took a big step forward tonight and he’s showing me that he’s improving with every day -he’s got some really good points. I want him to adapt himself to playing in new positions. He’s still young and he’s come through really quickly. He needs to learn, but I’m very happy that he’s taken a big step forward tonight”.

Henry

Guardiola also had words for Henry: “I hope his goal will give him a lift. The team needs much more of him and I know he wants to give more”. As to Andres Iniesta, the boss insisted: “he continues to play at a really high level”.

Thiago and Jeffren

Finally, Guardiola praised his youngsters: “Thiago has a lot of courage – he’s got a lot to improve and he has to grow. Jonathon is very aggressive and tidy. He doesn’t lose the ball and Jeffren let himself go tonight”.