BARCA MANAGE A WIN

Barcelona managed to put began to their recent poor run of form to manage a comfortable 4-1 aggregate win over Manchester City in the Champions League to qualify for the quarter-finals of the competition.

Lionel Messi and Dani Alves scored the goals for the Catalan club, while they conceded a late goal from Vincent Kompany that appeared more like a consolation for the visitors. Unlike in the last few seasons, Barcelona are not the favourites to win the competition this season. This is primarily due to the inconsistent form they have been showing under Gerardo Martino.

The club have been defeated three times in the last six matches and it has seen them slip to second place in the league table behind archrivals Real Madrid, who have been placed as the favourites along with Bayern Munich for this season’s competition. Martino had to answer questions about his capability as the Barcelona manager, but he did on the talking on the pitch, as his Barcelona team overcome a City team that were looking to attack all the time. Barcelona had several chances over the course of the 90 minutes, but it was not until the second half that they broke the deadlock through Messi.

Pablo Zabaleta was sent off in the latter stages of the match after showing dissent towards the referee.
"We won 4-1 with two wins against a very good opponent collectively and individually. When we play like that we can beat any opponent. Tonight we faced the best rivals we could have been drawn against and a team who could have gone further in the tournament. The game was one that needed to be overcome. There were moments in which we had control and others in which we struggled. City played more of the game 11 against 11 and they were more dangerous then,” said Martino.