Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick believes Lamine Yamal’s injury problems are not yet over despite the youngsters’ impressive performance against Elche.
Yamal scored his fourth goal of the campaign on Sunday afternoon but he is yet to rediscover his best form thus far this term. The 18-year-old was taken off in the second half, after a dip in form, but Barcelona managed to see the game through after Manchester United loanee Marcus Rashford scored the third goal in the 61st minute for the Catalans.
The Spain international has made headlines for the past few weeks with his below-par performance against Madrid on Sunday being discussed and secondly, for his separation from his partner.
Lamine Yamal scores his Barcelona’s first goal during the LaLiga EA Sports match against Elche (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
However, Flick, who has always admired the teenager and bestowed his faith on him, commented after the win over Elche on Yamal’s injury status, saying: “He has to manage his injury; he’s disciplined. He has to train, undergo treatment… he’s doing it. I can’t say the injury is over; it comes and goes. And he has to manage it.”
The German coach also claim that his team lacks quality, after Elche surprised the Barca fans by dominating possession at their home turf. Flick said on the game: “I’ve seen things that we’ve done well, but we also have to improve. We have to fight. Today we had an opponent who wanted the ball and it wasn’t easy. We had to press and we did, that’s why we scored the first two goals and created more chances.”
He further opined, “It’s not difficult to have control without Pedri. We can do that too. Pedri is an excellent player and we want him in every game, but without him we have to manage it. We can improve in many things, and we will. It’s three more points and we’ll keep going. It’s not easy, we have many players who have not been able to play in the last few games. We lack quality. The last two training sessions have been very good, one of the best this season. We have to talk about ball possession, we were not quite good in this. The most important thing is the three points. We have taken a step forward and we have to be positive.”
Flick will be eager to see his team return to their best when they travel to Belgium to face Club Brugge in the Champions League.
Barcelona will need to shift their focus to the domestic league, where they’ll play another away game, this time against Celta Vigo on November 9.
