Barcelona star Andres Iniesta has warned their Champions League opponents Celtic not to be fooled by their shock home loss to Alaves and insisted that they will get it right against the Scottish champions.
While Celtic were rampaging past Rangers in the Scottish Premier League, the Spanish giants were toiling to a 1-2 Nou Camp defeat against newly-promoted Basque minnows Alaves in a La Liga encounter.
Barcelona manager Luis Enrique pushed on Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez from the bench in a desperate bid to salvage something, but to no avail.
Barca were massively out of sorts, but Spain legend Iniesta doesn't believe Celtic should raise their hopes of springing a surprise in Tuesday's Champions League opener.
"Against Celtic everything will be different. This loss won't affect us. We must have patience. We have certainly had a bad performance but need to analyse the cause and correct the errors we made," the Spaniard midfield maestro was quoted as saying by the Daily Record.
"We are early in the season and there is plenty of room ahead to improve. Things didn't go well for us out there and you have to give Alaves credit because they did a great job. It was one of those games where nothing turned out right. We struggled and couldn't break down their defence," he added.
"But we've paid for it and we have to make sure things are better for Celtic."
Enrique agreed with Iniesta and asserted that the Barcelona defence will improve in subsequent matches.
"Alaves had three chances and scored with two of them. Our defence looked fragile but we will improve," Enrique said.
Barca are still without first choice goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen as he is yet to recover from a hamstring injury.
Netherlands custodian Jasper Cillessen, who faced Celtic with his former club Ajax Amsterdam in the Champions League and Europa League recently, will replace him.
"It perhaps wasn't the best debut for me but we will improve for the visit of Celtic I am certain," Cillessen said.
--IANS
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