The FC Barcelona manager says that the attacking trio of Messi, Suárez and Neymar may be the best that football has ever seen and that he’s never comfortable before facing a team that’s just changed its manager
The day before FC Barcelona are away to Valencia in the league (kick-off 8.30pm CET), manager Luis Enrique spoke to the press, and particularly stressed the difficulty of preparing for a match against a historically difficult opponent that has just changed its manager. With Gary Neville about to take over on the Valencia bench and Salvador González Voro serving as interim, it’s hard to know what to expect from a side that is currently ninth in the Liga standings.
The trident
“They generate so many chances, and score so many goals, and play for each other. It’s because of that that their stats are so impressive and I don’t remember anything quite like that happening in the recent history of FC Barcelona.”
“I think Suarez, Messi and Neymar form the best attacking threesome in Barça history. And probably of all time. I don’t really know enough about football history to truly be able to say, but I don’t think anyone has managed to do better than they have. They are three top, top level players”.
Valencia
“We are facing a team that has just changed its manager, and that complicates things for us … We’ve studied our opponent, but the change of manager could mean a change to their style too. So it’s a difficult match to plan”.
“I admire Valencia. They’ve got lots of young, quality players. After analysing Valencia, you can really see what Nuno [Espírito Santo] achieved with this team.”
“Football is full of surprises. We are in great form and they’re not having their best moment, but that doesn’t change anything. They’re stull a huge team”.
“This is one of hardest road trips of the season. All streaks come to an end, the good ones and the bad ones”.
His team
“Sergi Roberto is still not fully fit. He’ll be back when he’s completely ready. There’s nothing unusual about the situation”.
“The data shows that some players have been playing more minutes than last season. But the story is that we’ll be able to manage things better from January because we’ll have more players and it’ll be easier to spread things out”.