Quique Setien took charge at Barcelona in January

Barcelona head coach Quique Setien has apologised to his players for his assistant's behaviour during their 2-0 defeat to Real Madrid on Sunday.

Setien's No 2 Eder Sarabia was pictured on the touchline making disparaging comments about Barca players by Spanish television show Vamos.

A lip reader claimed he criticised Antoine Griezmann for missing a chance and repeatedly used foul language towards the players.

Setien on the touchline at the Bernabeu with his assistant coach Eder Sarabia

Spanish media suggest Sarabia's comments have not gone well with the Barca squad following their loss at the Bernabeu, which saw Real go above their rivals to top La Liga.

Setien told Spanish publication El Periodico: "We apologised to everyone, we cannot behave like that. We don't like to see things like this, we have committed an error and we should try to avoid something like this happening again.

Vinicius Junior scored one of Real's goals in the win against Barcelona

"This situation has affected me a lot, because I am concerned about the image of the club. We need to take care of that image, because we can be criticised for substitutions, tactics, etc, but not for our behaviour.

"It's true that you have to understand how people are at certain moments, we are not all the same. Eder has a great temperament, and in many situations it helps us phenomenally well.

"But he has to learn to control himself. He's trying to do that, he's trying to improve in this area because we have had situations like this before. They are becoming rarer, but it's something that we don't like to see.

"It's a bit of an embarrassment that this has become a news story and has provoked such a huge reaction."