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Barcelona’s 1-1 draw against Alavés on Saturday doomed them to their worst start in La Liga since the 2002-03 season and coach Ronald Koeman admits he is concerned about recent results.
Barça are winless in four league games, drawing two and losing two, and have recorded just eight points in their first six games. The last time they had such a low point total at this stage of the campaign was with Louis van Gaal 18 years ago.
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the Blaugrana They are already eight points behind the initial leader, Real Madrid, although they have a game ahead.
“That worries me,” Koeman said at a news conference when asked about his team’s winless streak. “It is not normal for a team like Barça to add only two points from the last 12 [available].
“But like I said, we are changing a lot of things. I cannot complain about the attitude of the team. I may be disappointed with the performances, but the season is very long.”
Luis Rioja opened the scoring for Alavés at Mendizorroza after a mess between Gerard Piqué and Neto before Antoine Griezmann leveled after the break with his first goal of the season.
Barca threw everything forward in the end, but couldn’t find a winner despite playing with one more man for the final 30 minutes after Jota’s red card.
Ansu Fati, Lionel Messi, Sergino Dest and Miralem Pjanic were rejected by Fernando Pacheco, who made eight saves in total, and Koeman asked his players to be more clinical.
“I am very disappointed with the result and once again we have not done enough in attack to win the match,” added the Dutch coach. “That was the problem against Juventus in the middle of the week and today it cost us two points.
“It is not a problem of attitude or concentration, it is about taking advantage of our opportunities. It is not acceptable for a team like Barça to create so many chances of just scoring a goal, but I would be more concerned if we weren’t creating it.”
The draw leaves Barcelona in the bottom half of the table, but Koeman was able to cheer up with a better second-half performance in the Basque Country, which came after he had made three substitutes at halftime.
“I made the changes because I was not happy with the first half and because some players had a warning,” he said. “The other day they criticized me for making my substitutes late, but today I did them at halftime and we were much better. We created a lot of opportunities.”
Barça will return to action on Wednesday in the Champions League when they play Dynamo Kiev at the Camp Nou and then host Real Betis next weekend in search of their first La Liga victory since defeating Celta de Vigo on October 1.
