Barcelona captain Lionel Messi says that the players still have confidence in manager Ernesto Valverde after Thursday’s Spanish Super Cup defeat to Atletico Madrid.

Messi was on target during the game but could not guide his team to victory, as Atletico scored twice late on to snatch victory and a place in Sunday’s final.

The defeat is likely to bring fresh speculation about Valverde’s future at the club, and Messi spoke about his boss after the match.

“We have confidence in him. We continue working to improve. We haven’t been playing well recently and need to get our performances back, even though we are the leaders [in La Liga]. “Apart from the result we played a great game. After a long time we dominated the game, but the last 10 minutes we give it away. “Whether it’s unfair or not, we lost. We were superior but we made schoolboy errors and game away two goals in the last minutes.” Source | Sport

Barcelona now have over a week until their next fixture, a home La Liga match against Granada. They’ll need no reminding they beaten 2-0 by Diego Martínez’s side in September.