Comments about Lionel Messi from within the club don’t help us, asserts Ronald Koeman

While Lionel Messi stayed at Barcelona after what felt like a decades long transfer saga, the Argentine hasn’t signed a new contract with the club. That does mean that once the January window opens, he will be open and free to discuss a pre-contract move to a club outside Spain. Not only that, there have been no reports indicating that the 33-year-old wants to sign a new deal although reports have indicated that Barcelona want him to do the same.

Yet it seems that not everyone at the club want that to happen as interim president Carlos Tusquets admitted, earlier this week, that Barcelona should have sold Messi in the summer. While that has come as a shock to many, Ronald Koeman has reiterated the fact that Messi’s decision to stay or leave the Camp Nou should be solely up tp him and nobody else. The Barcelona boss further added that comments from within the club do not help their cause and that needs to change.

"I don't care what's said outside the club. However, comments from inside the club don't help us have the calmness we need to do our job. We can't control what's said outside, but from within it's a different story,” Koeman said, reported the BBC.

"If there's anyone who needs to decide about his future, it's Leo himself. It [selling Messi] might have been his [Tusquets'] personal opinion and I respect that, but Leo's got a year left on his deal and he is the one who needs to decide."