Koeman rates Barcelona's title hopes after Eibar setback

The Blaugrana’s hopes of a 27th La Liga title suffered a fresh setback on Tuesday upon being held to a draw by Eibar.

Ronald Koeman believes it will be ‘very difficult’ for Barcelona to win La Liga this season, having dropped more points on Tuesday evening.

The Catalan giants sit seven points behind joint-league leaders Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid. The former has played two games less than either Barca or Zinedine Zidane’s men, leaving them in a solid position.

And on the back of a disappointing last game in 2020, which saw Ousmane Dembele cancel out Kike’s opener to salvage a 1-1 draw against Eibar after Martin Braithwaite’s early penalty miss, Koeman has delivered a bleak but realistic outlook on Barcelona’s prospects.

“I am realistic, it will be very difficult to be champions,” said the manager in a pre-match conference as quoted by Marca.

“Nothing is impossible, but you have to acknowledge the gap. Atletico look very good to me, very strong, they don’t concede many goals.”

Inconsistency has dogged Koeman throughout his first season. The Barcelona boss has won less than half of his 15 league games (W7 D4 L4), and lost first-team regulars Gerard Pique and Ansu Fati to long-term injuries.

Lionel Messi, however, is expected to return for the trip to Huesca on January 3 after taking an extended Christmas vacation to recover from a minor injury.

On whether the absence of veteran duo Messi and Pique played a role in the club’s draw against Eibar, Koeman said: “I don’t want to say that we lacked experienced players.

“There’s a transition in the team and we have injuries too.

“We’re playing young players, but today we had five or six young players and players with experience too.

“We missed Leo, who makes a difference, but the feeling now is that we should have won.

“We had chances, missed a penalty, and gave away the goal, which was their only shot on target.”