Barcelona manager Gerardo Martino has admitted that he is concerned about the poor league form of the club, which has led to their first defeat at home in 25 matches. Barcelona suffered a 3-2 loss at the hands of Valencia, which was their first defeat at the camp Nou since April 2012.
As a result, they have lost their lead in the Spanish league. This is the first time Barcelona have not been top of the table in 59 matches. Atletico Madrid, who previously were level on points with Barcelona, managed to go top of the table with a 4-0 win over Real Sociedad.
There is a danger of Barcelona slip into the third place if Real Madrid win the match in hand against Athletic club, and were left disappointed when luis suarez signed a new deal with Liverpool.
Martino has said that the competition has improved in recent years. Now, it is up to Barcelona to try and regain the lost advantage in the table. They had led to the table in the last few weeks only courtesy of their better goal difference over Atletico Madrid. Alexis Sanchez fired Barcelona into the lead after just seven minutes, but two quickfire goals from Valencia on either side of the break put them in the lead.
Defender Jordi Alba was sent off after a second yellow card to add to Barcelona’s misery. Messi returned to scoring ways with a penalty, but Paco’s goal was enough to seal the win.
“Now we’re playing in a completely different competition. We will try to regain the ground that we will most likely lose this weekend. We still have to play against our direct rivals. I’m concerned and I want to bounce back from this as soon as possible. We had the impression that the match was over after half an hour and we paid for that. I said that we will pay for our errors, and we committed errors today,” said Martino.