On-loan Barcelona star Iñaki Peña has refuted suggestions that he was the recipient of poor treatment on the part of Blaugrana boss Hansi Flick last season.
Speaking during an interview with Diario Sport this week, the shot-stopper was drawn on his relationship with Flick.
This came after it was repeatedly suggested last season that Peña was frustrated with the German’s behaviour in dropping him to the bench for Wojciech Szczęsny.
The 26-year-old, however, was quick to assure that there are no hard feelings between he and his former manager, in explaining:
”Well, unfair… In football there are fair things and unfair things. It’s the coach’s decision and you can’t say that he was unfair to me. If he did what he did it was for the good of the team. There was nothing personal or anything. When a coach decides to remove or put a player, even if it is a goalkeeper and in these cases he is magnified more, he always does it for the good of the team. I never took it personally.”
Peña, for his part, will have the opportunity to prove Flick and his staff wrong this weekend.
This comes as the Spaniard’s Elche prepare to make the trip to Catalunya’s capital to face off with a depleted Barca in a La Liga clash.
Conor Laird – GSFN
