Neymar will ease Messi’s burden, says Dani Alves

May 25, 2013 |

Barcelona full-back Dani Alves has claimed the signing of his Brazilian international colleague Neymar would help ease the burden that has been placed on Lionel Messi this season.

The four-time World Player of the Year has scored 60 times this season despite an injury-hit last couple of months to the campaign, whilst the second-highest scorer in the squad, David Villa, has only registered 14 goals.
And Alves doesn’t believe pairing Neymar and Messi together would be a problem should Barca finally complete their pursuit of the 21-year-old before the start of next season.
“Two phenomenons are better than one,” he told Barcelona sports daily El Mundo Deportivo.
“They are two good players and play in different positions. They would understand each other.
“It doesn’t bother Neymar to be the protagonist or not, although his way of playing will always attract attention. Neymar would be a relief, he would help Leo a lot.”
Barca’s dependence on Messi was most cruelly exposed on the European stage this season as the Argentine was forced into action when clearly carrying a hamstring injury against Paris Saint-Germain in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and missed the semifinal second-leg against Bayern Munich as the Germans went on to inflict a 7-0 aggregate defeat on the Catalans.
“In some games they have marked Messi a lot and Neymar would help unbalance defences more. We have lacked a little continuity up front and the objective looking forward to next season is to continue competing for everything.”
However, Alves refused to quash rumours that he could be one of those on his way out as the club tries to raise funds for a splurge in the transfer market in the close season.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/234081" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f1a92e2b6266351b67247a864d26693f" value="form-f1a92e2b6266351b67247a864d26693f" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88900918" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>