Barca can’t beat Granada and pressure on Koeman increases

Ronald Koeman’s position as Barcelona coach became even more fragile on Monday as Ronald Araujo’s late header was only enough to rescue a 1-1 draw at home to struggling Granada.EndMatchday 5Barcelona  1-1  Granada20 Sep 2021

Granada were ahead inside two minutes and while Araujo‘s equaliser gave Barca a dramatic finish at Camp Nou, the whistles from the home fans at the final whistle indicated a point was far from enough.

Barca have now won only two of their opening five games of the season and Koeman’s future looks increasingly uncertain, particularly on the back of last week’s 3-0 drubbing at home to Bayern Munich.

Koeman reacted to that result by picking a young team that included Eric Garcia, Sergino Dest, Alex Balde and Yusuf Demir, all aged 20 or younger.

But another stodgy performance did little to inspire confidence, with Barca’s best efforts at finding an equaliser in the second half reduced to a series of speculative crosses slung into the penalty area.

Koeman insisted on Sunday he was calm and not fearing for his job but an already-strained relationship with club president Joan Laporta will be pushed to breaking point if results do not improve.

There were 85 seconds on the clock when Domingos Duarte headed Granada in front.

Sergio Escudero was quickest to his cleared corner and he beat Sergio Busquets twice, once to the ball and then again to the line where he fed Duarte, who nipped in front of Frenkie de Jong at the back post.