Sissoko buoyed by Barcelona training camp

Moussa Sissoko feels the squad have really benefited from their training week in Barcelona.

With our next game not upon us until our trip to Anfield to face Liverpool on 31 March, the first team travelled out to Spain earlier this week for a set of intensive training sessions to prepare for the season’s final stint.

The training camp follows an uncharacteristic run of form for us in the Premier League as we've suffered three defeats in our last four games, but Moussa believes that the team will reap the rewards of their hard work over the last week as we head into the campaign’s final run-in.

“It’s been a good week. It was good to come here, especially after the defeat against Southampton,” the French international said. “We’ve had a good time all together, trying to refresh the mind and to have some nice time together.

“Everything has been good. Now most of the players will go off with their national teams and hopefully we can come back and be ready again to finish the season well.

“In the last few months we have played a lot of games and it was good to have a bit of rest and to spend some time all together.

“We obviously spend every day together at the training ground, but it’s good to all be away at the same time together and do different things and I think that will help us for the rest of the season.” 

It's set to be a demanding end to the campaign for us as we look to seal our place in the Premier League’s top four as well as continuing our fight in the Champions League.

We remain in third place in the domestic standings with just eight games to go while we're set to find out our opponents for the quarter-finals of the Champions League with the draw taking place on Friday morning (11am).

With so much still to play for this season and with everything still in our own hands, Moussa is hoping we can kick on.

“The objectives for the team now are to finish in the top three of the league and to try to secure the Champions League,” he said.

“It won’t be easy, but everything is in our own hands and if we win the remainder of our games, we know we will be in the top three for sure.

“At the same time, in the Champions League, we will try to go to the end if we can. We know it won’t be easy because we’ve still got a lot of good teams to play, but it’s about how we play our football.

“We love to play these kinds of games. We will wait to see the draw and then hopefully we will go through to the semi-finals."