Antoine Griezmann Concedes That Communication With Barcelona Teammates Must Improve

Barcelona forward Antoine Griezmann has admitted that work needs to be done on communicating with his teammates, despite scoring in the 1-1 Champions League draw with Napoli.

The 28-year-old brought a year-long transfer saga to an end last summer when he finally put pen-to-paper on a long-term deal at Camp Nou, after months and months of speculation suggesting that he wanted out of former employers Atletico Madrid.

But the Frenchman – who played a starring role for his country during their World Cup win in 2018 – hasn’t settled as quickly as he, or his club, would have coped, finding it hard to emerge from the shadow of teammates ?Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.

And Griezmann, speaking after ?Barça’s game in Naples, has admitted that he needs to work on developing a better understanding with his teammates, even though he netted the Catalan giants equaliser.

In quotes carried by Marca, he said: “We have to work on this (when asked about creating space up front).”

“I have to create space and sometimes they see me and sometimes they don’t. In the first half I didn’t do it much and in the second half we had more options.”

?Barça fell behind in Naples to Dries Mertens’ first half goal, but drew level through Griezmann after good work from Nélson Semedo on the right hand side. Arturo Vidal was then sent off late on for the visitors, but they did hold on for a vital draw – though the former Real Sociedad star admitted that Barcelona’s first half performance was not good enough.

“We wanted to win, we gave our all and it wasn’t to be,” Griezmann added. “It was hard for us at first to create and find spaces.

“I think we didn’t have a shot on target in the first half. Then we took advantage of their fatigue [in the second half].”

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Griezmann will now turn his attention to El Clásico this weekend, as La Blaugrana look to topple their bitter rivals and extend their lead at the top of La Liga.

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