Refereeing decisions “aren’t an excuse,” insists Dani Olmo as Barça suffer back-to-back losses | OneFootball

Dani Olmo insisted that Barça should be able to win in spite of poor refereeing decisions, after suffering back-to-back defeats in which they were left aggrieved by VAR failures and fouls that went unrecognised by the officials.

It has been a rough week for Hansi Flick’s Barcelona, who conceded four goals against Atlético Madrid at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano in the first leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final.

Just as Pau Cubarsí looked to have ignited a second-half comeback, play was halted for more than five minutes as VAR intervened to chalk off the defender’s goal for a marginal offside.

It was later revealed that the semi-automatic offside technology failed given the density of players inside the penalty area.

Speaking in depth with Aleix Parisé and Marta Ramón on RAC1, a Catalan radio network, Olmo highlighted that “it was such a delay.

“When it takes that long, it has to be a goal. We can’t be stopped for [almost] ten minutes. It breaks your rhythm.”

Still, the 27-year-old from Terrassa insisted that “if we do things as we should be doing them, then it depends on us, even if there are decisions that aren’t helping us.

“The coin isn’t falling on our side, but that’s not an excuse,” he told the Tu Dirás radio show.

Barcelona looked to bounce back from that Copa del Rey humbling when they travelled to face Girona in LaLiga action, though that match also left them less than satisfied when Fran Beltrán’s winning goal was allowed to stand despite a foul on Jules Koundé in the buildup.

Olmo made his thoughts clear, insisting that “Jules got their first; they got the ball, but they stood on him. It’s a foul.”

But the midfielder accepted that “if we’d have scored the chances we had,” it’d be a different story.

“I believe that we can come back at the Camp Nou against Atlético Madrid, and the team believes it too.

“We know we’ve got a lot of things to improve, but we’ll do it,” he assured fans.