Luis Enrique admits there is plenty of room for improvement despite seeing Barcelona move three points clear at the top of La Liga.

Barca’s performance in Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Atletico Madrid was far from convincing, with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez’s goals coming from two of the very few chances created by the Blaugrana, even though they were up against reduced numbers after Atletico had two players sent off.

The opening stages of both halves were clearly dominated by Atletico, and arguably the key moment in the game came when Claudio Bravo made a point-blank range save to deny Antoine Griezmann a second-half equaliser.

The first 30 minutes, in particular, was subdued for Barca, continuing their recent trend of starting games poorly. Enrique could not hide his irritation when he was asked whether it left him with positive or negative impressions.

“Positive, obviously, because of the result against a direct rival,” he said, before admitting: “But we will also analyse the game and find things to improve. We struggled to get going and went a goal behind after a chain of errors. We found it tough right to the end.”

But Enrique was also keen to emphasise the final result and hailed his players for their battling spirit, adding: “What I take away from the game is the team’s ability to dig in. We’re spoiled around here – if you don’t win 4-0, you’ve had a terrible game. But the fans understand this is a fantastic result.”

Atleti boss Diego Simeone, meanwhile, refused to condemn Diego Godin and Filipe Luis for the challenges which earned their red cards. He said: “I am proud of the team. They are unbelievable. In football you can win or lose. If we have to lose, I hope we always do it like this.”

But there is more bad news for Simeone with confirmation midfielder Augusto Fernandez will be out at least two months with a knee injury