FC Barcelona manager Luis Enrqiue has admitted blame after the Blaugrana‘s shock defeat at the hands of newly-promoted Alaves on Saturday.
Deyverson gave Babazorros a surprise lead in the 34th minute, only to be eventually pegged back by Jeremy Mathieu.
But the visitors would not be denied an unlikely victory, with Ibai Gomez sending them ahead once more in the 64th minute.
As is synonymous with Barca, they dominated the lion’s share of possession but could hardly make their dominance show, registering just two shots on target.
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Perhaps costly was Enrique’s decision not to start star forwards Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, and the coach blamed himself as well as defensive fragility for the loss.
“I am the head coach and I accept it (criticism),” Enrique said.
“Everything bad that happens is my fault, but hindsight makes it easy to criticise.
“Any success we create this season will be as a squad, not as 11 players.
“We were fragile in defence and we will have to go over that.
“It’s an area where we’ve been strong in other years, but we also lacked fluidity and precision.
“We were lacking inspiration. We didn’t position ourselves well and we didn’t occupy the right spaces in the first half.
“The second goal, after another error by us, hit the group hard and did a lot of damage because it was a demonstration of our defensive fragility.”
Barcelona face a quick turnaround after the defeat with the opening Champions League matchday against Celtic beckoning on Tuesday.
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