Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick has moved to quell fresh fears surrounding the wellbeing of midfield star Frenkie de Jong.
This comes after the Dutchman was left on the bench for the entirety of Barcelona’s meeting with Sevilla on Sunday.
The Blaugrana are of course fresh off making it nine wins from ten to open the La Liga campaign, courtesy of a 5-1 drubbing of Sevilla late last night.
En route to as much, however, De Jong was forced to watch on from the sideline.
Speaking to the media ahead of kick-off on Sunday, Hansi Flick revealed that the former Ajax standout had indeed picked up a minor fitness issue in training over the weekend.
Upon De Jong being left out for the entirety of the 90 minutes yesterday, the assumption, in turn, was that he had been deemed not in a fit state to contribute.
During his post-match press conference, however, boss Flick assured that this was in fact not the case.
Instead, Barca’s headmaster confirmed that he ‘simply’ thought it better to introduce the returning Gavi to proceedings at Montjuïc:
“Frenkie is not injured, I could have played today. I simply chose Gavi over him.”
Conor Laird – GSFN
