Gerard Piqué spoke to the media this evening in Washington DC two days ahead of Barça’s pre-season friendly against Chelsea.
Pre-season: “We are keen to push ourselves. We lost against United, and despite the result not being important, we always aim to win. Now we face a Chelsea team full of talent. The worst thing about these pre-season tours are the long distances. We’ve also found the pitches to be in poor condition and the weather is very hot. We didn’t play badly against United and just lacked that little bit of luck”.
The sanctions the club has received: “It’s unfair and I hope the club responds accordingly. We back the club to that extent”.
Pedro: “I understand he wants more playing time. He apparently has three player ahead of him in the pecking order. I really hope he stays. He’s a great squad player and I believe his leaving would weaken our squad”.
Promise to be better: “I feel I’ve improved from last year but on a personal and collective level. We need to carry on and our objective is to win the sextuple. It’s going to be a long season with complicated moments but I feel we have good squad to be able to compete on all fronts”.
Defensive paring with Vermaelen: “We’ve played in two games together. I hope he can stay injury free. He carries the ball out well from the back and showed how good he is at Arsenal”.