While talking about some of the mistakes he made during his playing career the former Gunner said his time in Spain was not the best saying:
The attitude of the coach – as well as the politics within the dressing room – made his season in Spain a very unhappy one.
He said: “I followed the advice of some person and instead of following how I was feeling inside. That was my first mistake.
“It was the wrong timing for me because when I arrived at Barcelona it was a mix between politics and a group that was in decline.
“There were big clans in the team between the Dutch players and the Catalan players with the rest of the team around and it wasn’t a good time for me.
“There was a mentality at that time when I arrived at Barcelona that was very simple: ‘forget who you are, forget what you’ve done, you’ve done nothing, you are at Barcelona now.’ They tried to break me mentally and then rebuild me.
“What this manager tried to do with me was the same as with Tevez. When you try to fight with somebody and there is no fight, then you don’t understand what’s going on.
“This manager did very bad things to me. At the beginning I tried to shut my mouth and establish myself. I tried to understand all the politics and everything around Barcelona.
“But it was bad things all the time and humiliations and in the end I wasn’t a sportsman any more. I was thinking about my person mentally and I went to see people and said I think I made a mistake going there.
“I signed four years there and after six months I wanted to leave the club.”
