Quique Setien wants to rest Lionel Messi, who has played every minute since the restart of football for Barcelona.Â
The Argentine footballer has been brilliant but on a league of his own as the rest of his team-mates have not displayed the consistency. He has had to carry the team and with a few matches to go and Barcelona having an outside chance at best to retain their La Liga title, Setien wants to rest Messi.Â
“He probably will get a rest, yes,” the Barcelona coach told a news conference after their 1-0 win over Real Valladoid.
“I’ve mentioned it to him previously and perhaps today if we’d got a couple more goals, as I think we deserved, he probably would have come off to get a little bit of a rest.”
He added that the whole team was tired having to play every three days.Â
“I think it’s mostly tired legs. It’s less than 72 hours since we played our last game,” he said.
“It was very hot today and the pitch felt a lot bigger towards the end of the match. You could see that, a lot of players were not looking fresh on late in the game and they probably lacked that touch of intensity.
“We’ve played many games and it’s very draining and we have quite a few players who’ve played a lot of minutes so we can’t blame our football, I blame mostly our tired legs for today’s game.
“Sometimes that can affect your decision making, but this is normal for the current situation we’re in.”
See More:Â FC Barcelona Squad 2020
