"Victory is more credit to La Real than discredit to Barça"

Real Sociedad coach Eusebio Sacristán was clearly delighted with his side's home win over Barcelona.

You spoke about unity and intensity in your pre-match press conference and the players responded...

We have great players, I said that as soon as I arrived at the club and tonight, they've shown it once again. To repeat our performance against Sevilla we needed to be at the same level we showed last week - that has to be a reference point for us from now on; we have to be a team which shows spirit - with players like [Alberto] De la Bella who hasn't played in a long while but helped us to win this game.

Where did Barça get it wrong?

No. More than talking about Barça, I'd rather concentrate on all of the good things which my team did; we pressed them high in many stages of the game, but later, when we were obliged to defend, we did an excellent job. Tonight the credit is more ours than discreditting Barcelona because we went into the game with great spirit and the great game which Rulli put in steered us towards victory. We defended in the same way against Sevilla, with commitment from the whole team, the players in midfield and attack also helped us a lot in that aspect. It was anything but easy.

Why do La Real come into their own against the big sides but struggle against those who are lower down the order?

We gave a good impression against Athletic, Granada and Espanyol. We've put in some great performances against some of the teams who are in the top part of the table and also against some of the ones near the bottom but we have done that in certain moments and at other times, we haven't been able to. What we have consistently needed to do is build on those good games, extend those winning runs because, just like the rest of the teams in this league, we have had rough times too. Now we have to continue playing with the same desire and intensity because when we lose that focus, we are sure to struggle again.

The team needs just three more points to be mathematically safe from the drop...

We have taken a very important step towards reaching a decent number of points but I don't feel like talking about that right now; I'd prefer to see the team continuing to put in similar performances to tonight's to see where we will end up at the end of the season, and hopefully, with the most points possible.