Having just managed to scrape a draw against Manchester City in the Premier League, Ronald Koeman is the man of the hour in Spain, as the press look for any indication Barcelona could use to beat Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.
Clearly worried their former prodigal son could finally come back to haunt them on the biggest club football stage there is, both Sport and Mundo Deportivo decided to talk to the Dutch manager ahead of Wednesday night’s game.
The latter of the two decided to focus on how Manchester City have changed under the Spanish manager and their weaknesses, while Sport decided to go for the “how do you stop them?” approach.
Speaking to Mundo, Koeman explained that if the ball is in the air, Barcelona will be fine: “Guardiola doesn’t have many tall players and therefore I can’t see a danger from set-pieces or corners.”
Stating the obvious when pointing out Pep Guardiola’s team like to play out from the back, which is the reason why they bought Claudio Bravo from Barcelona, Koeman was far more insightful, at least for Everton fans, when speaking to Sport.
The manager said: “I cannot deny we had a lot of luck, because it isn’t normal for a team to miss two penalties. Those who play well don’t always win.
“I wanted to play with three up front, but City’s players were so good, they owned the ball, which made me go to a 4-4-2 to have more people in the middle and defend better.
“Technically, City are great, they dominate, but defensively, they still aren’t that strong. It’s just a matter of time. They showed it for our goal, when they allowed Lukaku to go one on one.”
“We did what we could considering they had most of the ball. That’s why we didn’t have a lot of chances.”
Going back to Mundo’s interview with Koeman, the Dutch manager explained the reason why the game against Barcelona will be so interesting is because ‘both teams will want the ball’ and sides both teams face normally try to defend.
His favourite for the game on Wednesday? Barcelona, without a doubt. Why? Messi, Suarez and Neymar.
