Barcelona star Frenkie de Jong has this evening moved to send a message to his teammates in Catalunya.
Barca, and De Jong, were of course back in action a short time ago.
Desperate for a bounce-back victory after being sent packing from the Copa del Rey in midweek, the Blaugrana played host to Villarreal, in a La Liga clash.
When all was said and done, however, once more, the efforts of Xavi’s troops came up short.
This came as Villarreal emerged on the right side of an eight-goal thriller, by five goals to three.
After the visitors raced out into a two-goal advantage, Barcelona appeared to have wrestled back control of proceedings, courtesy of 2nd-half strikes on the part of all of İlkay Gündoğan, Pedri, and Eric Bailly (own goal).
But a twist in the tale remained, as a comical 20-minute stretch of defending opened the door for Villarreal to net on a further trio of occasions, ending the clash as a contest.
Speaking to the media on the back of the full-time whistle at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, it should therefore come as little surprise to hear of the aforementioned Frenkie de Jong being in altogether foul humour.
Questioned on exactly what went wrong for Barcelona on Saturday, the Dutchman laid the blame solely at the feet of he and his teammates:
“This cannot happen to a top club,” he began. “We start losing 2-0, then we come back, we can’t gift the match like this. We have to improve.”
De Jong continued:
“We trust Xavi and the coaching staff. We, as the players, we’re at fault.”
Conor Laird | GSFN
