• ‘This was a monologue, with Barça doing all the talking’
• El Mundo advise Manuel Pellegrini to listen to Oasis lyrics

The Spanish press heralded Barcelona’s 2-0 victory away at Manchester City as a watershed moment for their manager Gerardo Martino, describing the Argentine’s win as a “smash hit” to “silence his critics”.

“This was a monologue, with Barcelona doing all the talking”, wrote Santi Giménez from AS. “Martino needed a game on his Barcelona curriculum he could boast about, a game he could point to and silence his critics. Now he has one. Every coach has a game that defines his career. The Argentinian turned up in Manchester with a fine musical repertoire, but still hadn’t produced a smash hit. On Tuesday night, he topped the charts.”

El Mundo were more colourful in their description of Barcelona’s win, telling their readers that Man City had been “sent to the cemetery”, while advising Pellegrini he might learn a thing or two from some Oasis lyrics: “Maybe we should ask City’s most famous aficionado, Liam Gallagher, if Pellegrini is a worthy recipient of their very own Some Might Say lyrics: “Some might say they don’t believe in heaven/go and tell it to the man who lives in hell.”

Marca praised Martin Demichelis’s first-half performance as “a masterclass in defending at the centre-back position, evidenced by the relatively anonymous first-half from his countryman, [Lionel] Messi and the rest of the Barcelona strike force.” Perhaps a little less surprising was their description of Demichelis’s second-half red card and subsequent Messi penalty as the match’s ‘turning point’ although they did question whether the initial foul by the City defender started outside the box.

Marca analyst and former international referee Andujar Oliver cast his eye over a couple of the game’s other contentious decisions, ruling that the officials should have allowed Barcelona’s disallowed goal, scored by Piqué, but that the referee was right not to be penalise Gaël Clichy for handball inside City’s penalty box in the first half.

AS also ran with Neymar’s quotes about how Manchester City were “still a long way behind Barcelona.” The Brazilian forward came on as a substitute to set up Dani Alves’s second goal and looked back to his best following after returning from an ankle injury.

“I have read the things about Manchester City beating Barcelona because of the amount of goals they are scoring in England. They do have very good players – but we have much more experience in the competition.” Responding to Manuel Pellegrini’s complaints that referee Jonas Eriksson was ‘not impartial’, Alves said “people always talk about the referee when Barça win, it’s their way of trying to take credit away from us.”

• Champions League
• Manchester City
• Barcelona

Michael Butler

theguardian.com