Ronald Koeman’s new bold line-up in the first El Clasico outing of the new season between the Blaugrana and Los Blancos did not quite turn out as he had hoped as they lost 3-1 to Real Madrid, which understandably riled the Barca fans no end.
The biggest talking point from the game will come from a deeply generous VAR review which gave Sergio Ramos a spot kick, but Barca paid the price for not having a proper presence up front.
Koeman decided to drop Antoine Griezmann to the bench which may be fair based on recent form, but it shows they just don’t have an alternative so letting Luis Suarez go to Atletico Madrid for free now looks like a dreadful decision.
Barca still have a very strong squad so they should be doing better than this, so it’s not quite clear if Koeman is out of his depth or if he’s still trying to figure out his best XI.
The reaction to a loss on Twitter is always very strong, but his position is starting to be questioned:
Koeman’s situation is a strange one because a new manager will usually get a lot of time, but Barca do have presidential elections coming up and the winner could decide to sack him to win the fans over if things are still going badly.
He certainly needs to improve things after a poor start.
Credit: Football Tribe Malaysia
