Miralem Pjanic has joined Turkish side Besiktas on a one-year loan with no option to buy after hardly featuring for Barcelona in his first season at the club.
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Barcelona midfielder Miralem Pjanic has voiced his discontent at the treatment received from manager Ronald Koeman, after sealing a move to join Besiktas this week. Pjanic was extremely critical of the manager, terming him as a “very, very strange coach” who had disrespected him. The former Juventus midfielder expressed his viewpoint in an interview with Marca while on international duty.
“He (Koeman) had a cross against me from the beginning. It was hard to accept. I waited until the end for things to change. I played all of the Champions League games and we won 2-0 in Turin. Then LaLiga Santander comes along and I’m out. I was going to ask him if I was doing something wrong. Maybe he wanted something different than [Massimiliano] Allegri, [Maurizio] Sarri, Luis Enrique or [Luciano] Spalletti. They all have different things, but they communicate. It’s good for the team. ‘No, no, it’s only rotation, I have no problem, your attitude is good…’. Okay, fine, but then I was out for longer. I didn’t understand. He’s a very, very strange coach. It’s the first time I’ve seen someone like this,” said Pjanic as quoted by Marca.
The midfielder underwent a period of eleven straight games without playing, even with five substitutes available. Pjanic admitted that he was very disappointed having been subjected to such treatment.
“I wasn’t alone. You can look closely and see there were others. I don’t want to talk about them, they can talk if they want to. How do you think it was? From February until May I hardly played. I was very disappointed. I could have said ‘I’ve a three-year contract so I don’t care’, but I’m not like that. It was a very difficult situation to accept, but I wasn’t going to fight. There was a person who was never going to change. He’s the coach,” said the midfielder.
“There was a lack of respect for the club, for those who didn’t play after training well. The coach was never there to see the attitude of the players who didn’t play. It’s the first time I’ve seen that. How can a player be motivated to show he’s there when the coach isn’t there to see the attitude or how he trains? It was one of the worst things I’ve seen, a huge lack of respect and it wasn’t easy for those of us not playing. Now I’ve found a solution to play and I’m happy,” he added.
Pjanic elaborated on the discomfort he experienced when playing under Koeman, stating that he never enjoyed proper clarity.
“Right now, today, I don’t know what he wanted exactly. He didn’t try to explain things to me or find a solution. I would go to ask him what he wanted from me, positionally or what I was doing well or badly. I wanted to adapt as quickly as possible to the team and be useful. You need 17 or 18 players from a squad to win titles. He didn’t have problems with my play and didn’t give me answers. Time went on and the situation went from bad to worse, without any reason,” said the midfielder.
“Like I said, I was being professional, so this is difficult to understand. Many people on the inside didn’t understand it either. Then there was this opportunity to leave and I wanted to listen to that, because I need to play. I know what I can bring to a team, but you need confidence and dialogue and things to be said to your face. I’d have preferred things to be said to me directly, but it was what it was. It was a very odd way of communicating and it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced this. I’ve had a very good relationship with all of my coaches. I don’t know what happened, I honestly don’t know. He didn’t want responsibility or confrontation, because I guess that couldn’t be handled,” he concluded.
