ALVES SEES BARÇA IN A TRANSITION PHASE - "If you can't pressure to perfection, maybe yo have to take a step backwards"

Posted Friday, September 20, 2013 by Marca.com

ALVES SEES BARÇA IN A TRANSITION PHASE -

Dani Alves spoke about the moments that Barça is going through: "We are in a moment of transition, looking for our best way of playing, and clearly, it's not easy. I think we're on the right track because, despite having to make all these adjustments to the team, we´re still winning", he observed.

"it's not so different from what we used to do, but we are introducing new elements to deal with the teams that turn up and park the bus, and we can alternate styles to get more chances of scoring", he said. "We know there are still things left to do, such as coordinating ourselves better when pressuring, and generally playing a tighter game."

The Brazilian admitted that the first half of the game against Ajax left a lot to be desired: "I think that in the first half we needed to be more intelligent. If you can't pressure to perfection, maybe you have to take a step backwards, and take it from there, becasue we left a lot of spaces behind us and they could have hurt us a lot. We spoke about it in the break, and in the second half we did it a lot better", he thought.

Alves then gave his view of his teammates Messi, Neymar and Valdés: "They are players that help out a lot. That's why they're the best, different from the rest. When you need them, they're there."

"Neymar is very easy to get on with. He's humble despite being one of the best. He's a lad that has come to learn and do his best, both professionally and personally. It's not easy when someone arrives thinking that they know everything, but he hasn't come with that attitude", he said, talking about his club's star signing.