Former Barcelona president Joan Gaspart has leapt to the defence of Lamine Yamal and hit out at Real Madrid captain Dani Carvajal after their bust-up in the El Clasico.
Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham scored either side of Fermin Lopez’s strike for Barcelona to give Real Madrid the bragging rights over their arch-rivals in a 2-1 win on Sunday.
Real Madrid went five points clear of Barcelona in the La Liga table with much of the build up to the match dominated by Yamal’s comments that Los Blanos “steal and complain”.
Carvajal and Vinicius Junior both aimed talking gestures towards Yamal after the match with Bellingham having a dig at the Spain international on social media, he wrote: ‘Talk is cheap’.
Defending the Barcelona youngster in a passionate rant on La Posesion, the former president of the Catalan giants Gaspart said: “Who the hell is Carvajal? He was a great player, but he’s finished now. Why should Lamine call him if his statements weren’t even directed at him?”
Yamal’s early breakthrough at Barcelona has led to high expectations, according to Gaspart, he added: “They made the mistake of calling him the best in the world too early. He could become it, but he’s not there yet.”
READ: Vinicius Junior has just one place to go after ‘I’m leaving’ Real Madrid bombshell
Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger reckons it was “a bit men against boys in some departments” as Barcelona struggled to deal with Real Madrid.
Wenger told beIN Sports: “Xabi Alonso balanced his team well today and overall I would say that it was a bit men against boys in some departments.
“For example, the defensive performance of Real Madrid was much strong than the defensive performance of Barcelona. Up front, Madrid always looked like they could score one more goal and Barcelona looked toothless up front with no Robert Lewandowki and no Raphinha.
“Barcelona had a lot of the ball in the second half after Mbappe missed the penalty but they never really looked like scoring a goal.
“The defensive balance of Real Madrid today, I give credit to Xabi Alonso for having done that very well.”
Wenger added: “You try to focus on balancing your team and on getting them motivated again, setting targets to do better than the year before.
READ: Raphinha hits out at Barcelona team-mate Yamal for giving Real Madrid ‘extra motivation’ in El Clasico
“But when we speak about the Barcelona case, I felt like they lost Inigo Martinez at the back who was one of the experienced players.
“Today, you can see that the defence on the goal from Mbappe lacks maturity and experience.”
On Barcelona, Wenger continued: “The performance of Barcelona lacked maturity today in decisive moments. When you want the big games, it is about dealing with important moments of the game.
“What did Mbappe do? He went into the game today and was thinking, ‘I will only make runs behind the central defenders and I’ll score at some stage’, and he told his midfielders to look at him every time they had the ball.
“The pass from Jude Bellingham was outstanding and Barcelona did not have these kinds of players today to make this kind of difference.
“At the end of the day, you go home and that class, that special class, wins you the game: the vision and the decisive run.”
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