Luis Enrique admitted Barcelona’s goalless draw with Espanyol in the Catalan derby on Saturday was a “fair” result.
La Blaugrana were replaced by Atletico Madrid at the summit of La Liga after they failed to break down the resilient Periquitos, with Diego Simeone’s men beating Levante 1-0 later in the day, and the Coach accepted his team were not good enough for all three points.
“[Espanyol] were at a very high level,” he said after the game.
“Espanyol were very intense, which was something we already knew because they have a new Coach and always play with aggression in derbies.
“[On alleged racist chanting towards Neymar], I’m only interested in things related to football.
“If I say something, I’ll get hit with a stick. Otherwise, I’m stuck [for words].
“I tell my players that football is a sport, in which contact is allowed. I don’t want to elaborate on this.
“We tried to be better than our opponents through game situations. We had a good start and made chances.
“I think the result was fair on the whole if you consider the chances we created.
“I made only one change because I deemed it fit. It’s what I found necessary to improve what was happening on the pitch.
“Some may think we picked up one point, others may think we dropped two. We’ll see, but these are the conditions for our next two games.
“We’ll try to play at [Espanyol’s] level of intensity at Camp Nou. It’ll be an attractive game against a team who have done well.
“I don’t talk about referees, I limit myself to assess what happens on the pitch.”
