Barcelona Boss Ernesto Valverde Delighted to See His Side Grab Victory Once Again After 3-1 Win

Barcelona continued their faultless start to this season's Champions League with a convincing 3-1 victory over Greek champions Olympiakos.

It assured the Blaugrana maintained their unbeaten start to the season, but also saw Lionel Messi grab his 100th European goal, as well as his 50th in 2017.

After an impressive, dominant display from his side, former Olympiakos manager Valverde had this to say about the game.

Speaking to the Barcelona website, he said, “The match showed us there are no easy games. We should recognise how important this victory is, we secured three difficult points.

“We want to be calm when things are going well for us and not so well.

“They are a team who never give up and they demonstrated that again today. We will have a very tough match away to them and I wish them all the best.”

In a somewhat eventful closing 10 minutes in the first half, centre back Gerard Pique was dismissed after picking up a second yellow for purposely handling the ball into the Olympiakos net, much to the dismay of the Barcelona faithful.

Ernesto Valverde gave his view on the incident, saying he believes it was an instinctive action. Speaking to Football Espana, he said, "I haven’t seen the replays, but I’d imagine it was all instinct, with the goal so close to him.

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“We knew they’d get stronger once we went down to 10 men. That’s why we needed to find a second goal, so things would become easier.

“They came to defend and find a goal on the counterattack. With our opponents playing so deep, it was tough to find rhythm. Why take risks if they played deep and we had 10 men?"

Barcelona and Valverde will be happy going into matchday four comfortably top of group D, where they will face Olympiakos again, this time in the away fixture.