Espanyol coach praises ‘gifted’ Barcelona youngster – ‘He’ll mark an era for sure’ | OneFootball

Once the international break is over, Barcelona will have a series of tough fixtures coming up, starting with the October 20 clash against Sevilla.

The clash against Sevilla will be followed by matches against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid respectively.

Many will also look forward to the early November clash against Espanyol, which will mark the return of the Barcelona derby.

Manolo Gonzalez on facing Barcelona and Lamine Yamal

Although there are still a couple of weeks remaining before the season’s first Barcelona derby, Espanyol coach Manolo Gonzalez discussed many things related to Barcelona in a recent interaction.

The Espanyol coach talked about Lamine Yamal, who is a doubt for the upcoming game against Sevilla after picking up a minor knock during the international break.

“Lamine is a gifted player. If he’s got his head right, he’ll mark an era for sure. He is a different player. This boy is very prepared. At a different level,” Manolo said on La Porteria.

Manolo Gonzalez is looking forward to facing Barcelona (Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images)

On facing the Catalans at Montjuic, he remarked: “We’ll go to Montjuic, we’ll play at home then, it’ll be a tough game with a lot of competition.”

“Having them at a high level makes it more difficult, but we can compete against them, as we can with everyone,” he added.

Manolo even warned that anyone not having the mindset of beating Barcelona will not be counted for the game.

“Barcelona are strong but we will compete. Anyone who does not think about winning will not play,” he said.

Barcelona are indeed a daunting challenge for Espanyol, especially following an excellent start to the season that has seen them eight of the nine matches so far.

However, when asked to pick a favourite for La Liga this season, Manolo offered a rather diplomatic response.

“I worry about us, since I was in the first team I worry a lot about our matches and I don’t care about the rest,” he said.