Barca keep title hopes alive

ANTOINE GRIEZMANN answered his critics in style yesterday by scoring with a sensational chip as Barcelona thrashed Villarreal 4-1 to keep their faint La Liga title hopes alive.

After the humiliation of being brought on in the 90th minute against his former club Atletico Madrid, Griezmann was back in the starting line-up at La Ceramica and repaid the faith with a stunning goal, teed up by Lionel Messi.

“It was the kind of goal only great players can score,” said Barcelona coach Quique Setien. “He played a spectacular match.”

Messi also laid on a curling Luis Suarez shot into the top corner after Gerard Moreno cancelled out a Pau Torres own-goal that had put Barca in front. Ansu Fati then added a fourth late on.

“We needed this match a while ago,” admitted Setien. “We have to keep adding points and we’ll see what happens.”

“We go away happy and sure that we had a great game and they enjoyed it. Everything went our way today.

”We played well, overloaded them in central areas, made progress out wide, were a goal threat with shots.

”There are other teams that have made it more difficult for us because they are very solid in defence. Maybe (Villarreal) were less so.

“The intention (to play well) has always existed. Maybe we surprised our opponent.

”We played out from the back well, we scored early, we found the second… this helps.

I’d have liked to have finished like that in every match, but it’s not an exact science.”

Setien did not responded to club president Josep Maria Bartomeu’s criticism of VAR after Real Madrid were awarded another penalty which Sergio Ramos converted in an earlier match against Athletic Bolbao.

”I’m not going to say anything about this,“Setien told Marca. ”I haven’t heard what he (Bartomeu) said. If the president has said it, what am I going to say?

”I understand VAR less and less,” he added. ”I think we have a tool that makes football fairer, but it doesn’t seem enough at the moment.

”Then it’s about the interpretation that is made of incidents, even watching it replayed many times.” – AFP/Agencies