I Will Make Barcelona Fans Happy – Malcom

Malcom has said he wouldn’t rise to Roma’s “provocation” after scoring against them on Tuesday only to see Barcelona go on to lose the game 4-2.

Roma were hours away from signing Malcom last week and had even reached an agreement with Bordeaux when Barca swooped in with a bigger offer, landing the Brazilian for €41 million.

“I don’t get involved with that sort of provocation,” Malcom told reporters after the match. “What’s important is what happens on the pitch. There’s no need to go over and over [what happened]. I am here, I’m a Barcelona player and I want to help. I hope to be able to make the supporters happy.”

Pressed for his thoughts on how Roma have dealt with the transfer saga on Twitter, he added: “No, nothing [to say]. It’s just jokes. I’m not angry about it.”

Malcom, who had several good chances throughout the game, gave Barca a deserved second-half lead after Rafinha and Stephan El Shaarawy had exchanged first-half goals.

However, as Barca coach Ernesto Valverde rang the changes, ending the game with 10 B team players on the pitch, the Spanish champions fell apart.

Roma took full advantage of the inexperience of their opposition and turned things around with late goals from Alessandro Florenzi, Bryan Cristante and Diego Perotti.

“We played really well until the final 15 minutes,” Valverde said in his postmatch news conference. “Before that, though, there were 75 really good minutes. We dominated the play and played the way we want to.

“Even with the kids on, we still had chances to go 3-1 up. After that, Roma have pressed us more and what happened was normal — they had a more experienced team. We took risks with the youngsters [in the second half] to give them that chance to face these situations. That’s how you learn.

“My idea is for the first team players to play together so that they can get used to playing with each other and so that Malcom can pick up the group dynamic. That means the kids then all play together [later in the game]. Maybe that’s the price we have to pay [losing the game].”