{"id":1115626,"date":"2019-11-15T16:31:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T16:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/?p=1115626"},"modified":"2019-11-15T16:32:18","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T16:32:18","slug":"gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is &#8220;excessive&#8221; considering how successful they have been.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old central defender has been a mainstay in Ernesto Valverde&#8217;s side this season missing just one of their opening 12 league games through suspension.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Pique brushes off criticism: Five key things to know\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Barcelona are top of their Champions League group and lead La Liga.<\/li>\n<li>However, they&#8217;ve come under plenty of criticism this season.<\/li>\n<li>Gerard Pique, who&#8217;s been near ever-present for the Catalan giants, feels those criticisms have been excessive.<\/li>\n<li>The former Spain international reminded everyone of what Barcelona have achieved in the last year.<\/li>\n<li>Pique also recognised the criticism comes with the territory and feels they can play much better.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/embeds.audioboom.com\/posts\/7424664\/embed\/v4?image_option=full\" style=\"background-color:transparent; display:block; padding: 0; max-width:700px;\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"allowtransparency\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"Audioboom player\" allow=\"autoplay\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bar\u00e7a, though, have not had it all their own way in La Liga losing three matches to date and find themselves level on points with arch-rivals Real Madrid at the top of the championship with Atletico Madrid and Sevilla a further point behind.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the league&#8217;s top nine clubs, which also includes Real Sociedad, are separated by just five points making the Spanish top division one of Europe&#8217;s most competitive this season.<\/p>\n<p>With so much expectations on the Catalan giants&#8217; shoulders, as defending champions and Champions League contenders, there&#8217;s been murmurings of dissatisfaction from the crowd as well as picking up criticism from the media.<\/p>\n<p>Pique, who returned to his boyhood club from Manchester United in 2008, understands it comes with the territory, but feels it&#8217;s gone overboard as people quickly forget their recent achievements.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chris Smalling: &#039;We Want Him To Stay&#039; Roma Fans Squawka Mini-Doc\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bVBl0hFkq0U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Subscribe to <a href=\"http:\/\/sqwk.at\/Squawka-Sub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Squawka\u2019s Youtube channel here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have won the last two league titles, we are the leaders in La Liga and in the Champions League and the criticisms we are receiving are excessive,&#8221; he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=avzt0IJn6Eo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">El Partidazo de COPE<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Can we play better? Of course, but there is still a lot of the season left.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Barca is the least result-focused team in the world. It&#8217;s not enough to win, the fans have made that clear. We have to win playing well and it&#8217;s true that right now we are not at the level that we should be.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is &#8220;excessive&#8221; considering how successful they have been. The 32-year-old central defender has been a mainstay in Ernesto Valverde&#8217;s side this season missing just one of their opening 12 league games through suspension. Pique brushes off criticism: Five key things to know\u2026 Barcelona are top&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":1105219,"parent":0,"menu_order":4267,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is \"excessive\" considering how successful they have been.","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"news-category":[],"class_list":["post-1115626","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"external_featured_image_url":"","hide_featured_image_pattern":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona | Squawka | EN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is &quot;excessive&quot; considering how successful they have been.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is &quot;excessive&quot; considering how successful they have been.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Squawka | EN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SquawkaFootballNews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-15T16:32:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708-1024x683.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@squawka\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mohamed Moallim\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/46582d436cbfa44c50f11dd9e9e6f22c\"},\"headline\":\"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-15T16:31:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-15T16:32:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\"},\"wordCount\":381,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\",\"name\":\"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona | Squawka | EN\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-15T16:31:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-15T16:32:18+00:00\",\"description\":\"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is \\\"excessive\\\" considering how successful they have been.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg\",\"width\":2400,\"height\":1600},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Squawka\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/\",\"name\":\"Squawka | EN\",\"description\":\"Football News, Stats, and More...\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/46582d436cbfa44c50f11dd9e9e6f22c\",\"name\":\"Mohamed Moallim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/745e1c4126cef29da74a30842230f6dd19f94a0b1223e2b89a1863093c4643ea?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/745e1c4126cef29da74a30842230f6dd19f94a0b1223e2b89a1863093c4643ea?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mohamed Moallim\"},\"description\":\"I'm a freelance writer who specialises in the beautiful game. With over ten years of experience, I have been published in the Independent and Daily Mirror and numerous magazines, including FourFourTwo and Champions Journal. I've also appeared as a Dutch football expert on Talksport and BBC Five Live. When I'm not working, you can find me studying all fields of knowledge no matter how obscure.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/iammoallim\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/author\/mohamed-moallim\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona | Squawka | EN","description":"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is \"excessive\" considering how successful they have been.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona","og_description":"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is \"excessive\" considering how successful they have been.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/","og_site_name":"Squawka | EN","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SquawkaFootballNews\/","article_modified_time":"2019-11-15T16:32:18+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":683,"url":"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708-1024x683.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@squawka","twitter_misc":{"Estimated reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/"},"author":{"name":"Mohamed Moallim","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/46582d436cbfa44c50f11dd9e9e6f22c"},"headline":"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona","datePublished":"2019-11-15T16:31:45+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-15T16:32:18+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/"},"wordCount":381,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg","articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/","url":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/","name":"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona | Squawka | EN","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg","datePublished":"2019-11-15T16:31:45+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-15T16:32:18+00:00","description":"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is \"excessive\" considering how successful they have been.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/06172001\/PA-44506708.jpg","width":2400,"height":1600},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/gerard-pique-hits-back-unfair-criticism-barcelona\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Squawka","item":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Gerard Pique hits back at unfair criticism of Barcelona"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/","name":"Squawka | EN","description":"Football News, Stats, and More...","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/46582d436cbfa44c50f11dd9e9e6f22c","name":"Mohamed Moallim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/745e1c4126cef29da74a30842230f6dd19f94a0b1223e2b89a1863093c4643ea?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/745e1c4126cef29da74a30842230f6dd19f94a0b1223e2b89a1863093c4643ea?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Mohamed Moallim"},"description":"I'm a freelance writer who specialises in the beautiful game. With over ten years of experience, I have been published in the Independent and Daily Mirror and numerous magazines, including FourFourTwo and Champions Journal. I've also appeared as a Dutch football expert on Talksport and BBC Five Live. When I'm not working, you can find me studying all fields of knowledge no matter how obscure.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/iammoallim"],"url":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/author\/mohamed-moallim\/"}]}},"yoast_title":"","yoast_description":"Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes recent criticism of the club is \"excessive\" considering how successful they have been.","yoast_keyword":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1115626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1115626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1105219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115626"},{"taxonomy":"news-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-category?post=1115626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}