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Tuesday, 27 January 2015

Fantastic Messi and Neymar depend on the team, says Luis Enrique

Luis Enrique says Lionel Messi and Neymar's current exceptional form owes much to the way his entire Barcelona side are playing.

Messi and Neymar have scored or assisted 11 of the 18 goals Barcelona have notched in the past five games and combined to devastating effect in the 6-0 thrashing of Elche at the weekend.

While acknowledging the form of the attacking duo, Luis Enrique was quick to praise the efforts of the side as a whole in their recent run.

"Messi and Neymar are key for the team," he told a press conference. "They depend on the team, but also the team depends on them to achieve their objectives. I would rather highlight all the players because they are important for our general performance."

Barca take a 1-0 lead to the Vicente Calderon for the second leg of their Copa del Rey clash with Atletico Madrid, but Luis Enrique does not consider his side as favourites to progress.

"It's a mistake to think that we are favourites," he continued. "If we think about the numbers of last season, anybody could say that they are favourites. If we analyse the numbers of the current season then we are favourites, and that's a mistake.

"This is a match where we have the objective of victory, it's wrong to think there is a favourite.

"Football is a contact sport and sometimes is difficult to measure that. Tomorrow, I would like to see a sporting show."

Luis Enrique went on to back all three of goalkeepers Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Claudio Bravo and Jordi Masip as players who are ready to step into the first team when called upon.

"To be a Barca goalkeeper, it's not enough to have quality. You have to make decisions and execute them. We have three great goalkeepers who can give us solutions," he said.

The former Celta boss also dismissed suggestions Ivan Rakitic is struggling with a knee injury and revealed Jeremy Mathieu is training fully.

"It's totally false but completely normal," he said of the reports on the Croat. "Rakitic has no problems with his knee, he was just out of the squad the other day. Mathieu is working normally, which is good news for us."

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