Barcelona Rebel Takes Powerful Farewell Dig At Ronald Koeman Before Leaving Camp Nou

A Barcelona loanee has lashed out on Ronald Koeman once again.

Miralem Pjanic will be playing for a different team this season, but his frustrations over his time with Barcelona has not changed one bit. The outspoken 31-year-old had just parted ways with the Catalans to join Turkish club Besiktas on loan but is still fuming over Barcelona manager Koeman.

In a wide-ranging interview with Marca, Pjanic bared that his Barcelona spell has been “complicated” because of Koeman, stressing the manager’s “strange” approach “killed his confidence.”

“It was complicated, and I was also two weeks late because of COVID-19 and with a new coach [Koeman],” Pjanic explained. “But my situation was complicated from the beginning. I got there after two weeks away, started to train little by little, alone, to prepare myself to start with my teammates. Three, four, seven, 10 days went by and the coach never came to talk about the season, about me, to speak about anything.”

“It was strange, but fine. Time passed, I was feeling good and playing, but of course I wanted more. Then there's a point when I was playing less and things were complicated. It was tough physically and mentally and it killed my confidence because I had no communication with him [Koeman]. It was very strange,” he added.

“The coach is the one who says who plays and who doesn't, but there are ways of doing things,” he continued. “I'm a player who can take anything, but I'd like to be told to my face and not as if I'm a 15-year-old. I fought until the end, I was always professional with the lads, always working hard, for them too. I knew that if the coach stayed I'd have to find a solution."

Pjanic further admitted that at one point, he thought maybe Koeman wasn’t happy about the way he publicly expresses his dejection, having opened up about his seemingly terrible situation a couple of times in the past.

The four-time Serie A champion then concluded that it wasn’t the case. For Pjanic, Koeman is just unfair not only to him but to other Barcelona players as well.

"I wasn't alone,” the midfielder revealed. “You can look closely and see there were others. I don't want to talk about them, they can talk if they want to. How do you think it was? From February until May I hardly played. I was very disappointed.”

“There was a person who was never going to change. He's the coach,” he added. “There was a lack of respect for the club, for those who didn't play after training well. The coach was never there to see the attitude of the players who didn't play.”

“It's the first time I've seen that. How can a player be motivated to show he's there when the coach isn't there to see the attitude or how he trains? It was one of the worst things I've seen, a huge lack of respect and it wasn't easy for those of us not playing. Now I've found a solution to play and I'm happy," he concluded.