Luis Enrique insists brilliant Barcelona can improve in many areas

Barcelona may have blown their Clasico rivals Real Madrid away 4-0 at the weekend, but Luis Enrique insists there is still plenty of room for improvement at the Camp Nou.

The Barca boss pits his Primera Division leaders against his former employers Roma tonight as the Catalans bid to secure their place in the Champions League knockout stages with a win.

Saturday’s dismantling of Madrid at the Bernabeu was a fourth straight victory in all competitions for in-form Barcelona, who have scored 12 goals without conceding during that run.

Ever the perfectionist, Luis Enrique feels there is much more to come from his players.

“On Saturday we played at a very high level, but we can still improve on that,” he said yesterday.

“We can improve when it comes to the counter-attack, applying pressure, and when we’re taking corners.

“There are plenty of things we need to improve on and the players know that... they’re no fools.

“That win has certainly helped us focus on what we need to do in that regard.”

Barca were held to a cagey 1-1 draw by Roma in September’s reverse fixture and Luis Enrique is expecting a concerted challenge from the team he coached in the 2011-12 season.

With two games remaining the Giallorossi are only second in Group E by a single point from Bayer Leverkusen, with BATE Borisov — Roma’s day-six opponents — another point back.

Luis Enrique said: “It will be a very different game now we’re back on home turf. It will be a very demanding encounter and an open match.

“Roma have to come here and win because they will not want to have to rely on getting another result. It will be an interesting game because both teams play very good football.”

Rudi Garcia’s Serie A title hopefuls suffered a setback when labouring to a 2-2 draw at Bologna at the weekend.

It was a game to forget for the French tactician, who was just grateful to arrive in Barcelona without accruing any fresh injury concerns.

“There’s nothing I can say about that game because it wasn’t really a football match,” he said. “It was instead a parody of a football match.

“The only good thing was that there were no injuries.”

Barca’s all-time top goalscorer Lionel Messi could make his first start in two months after returning from a knee injury as a second-half substitute in the thrashing of Madrid.

Rafinha and Javier Mascherano miss out for the hosts while the attack-minded trio of Gervinho, Mohamed Salah and Francesco Totti are sidelined for Roma.