Alves steers clear of Demichelis debate

Dani Alves refused to be drawn into the debate on Martin Demichelis’ red card in Barcelona’s UEFA Champions League tie with Manchester City.

The Argentine’s dismissal for a foul on Lionel Messi early in the second half proved critical as his countryman went on to convert the subsequent penalty, with Alves making it 2-0 late on.

City manager Manuel Pellegrini was angered by the decision, claiming that a foul on Jesus Navas had not been given in the build-up, before stating that it was “not a good idea to put a referee from Sweden in charge of such an important game”.

Pellegrini also suggested that the official, Jonas Eriksson, was attempting to make amends for a decision he gave against Barcelona in the group-stage fixture against Milan.

However, Barca defender Alves believes that discussion around the decision is merely an attempt to devalue his side’s performance.

“There are a lot of people who can talk about that, all we try to do is do our job, produce big performances, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” he told Canal Plus.

“But people always talk about the referee when Barca win, it’s their way of trying to take credit away from us.”

Alves felt that the Spanish champions fully deserved their victory, highlighting the quality of their performance both in defence and attack.

“We were very good defensively, we always have a big chance of winning when we don’t concede goals and we managed to keep a clean sheet while playing really nice football,” he added.