Barcelona bought Andre Gomes from Valencia in the summer of 2016 and his first couple of seasons haven't exactly gone to plan, although it's not for a lack of trying.

The Portuguese midfielder has explained just how desperate he is to succeed at the Camp Nou, but he has admitted that anxiety has played a role in holding him back.

"I shut myself away," he said in an explosive interview with the Spanish football magazine Panenka.

"I don't allow myself to let out the frustration that I have. "So what I do is I don't talk to anyone, I don't annoy anyone.

"It's as if I feel ashamed. "The notion of not wanting to leave the house has happened to me on more than one occasion.

"The idea of people being able to see you, it gives off a fear of going out into the street because of embarrassment."

Trying to analyse his performances at Barcelona, Gomes suggested that he overcomplicates things by thinking too much.

"Thinking too much hurts me because I think of bad things and then about what I have to do," he said. "Although my teammates support me quite a lot, things don't come off in the way they want them to.

"I am calm when I'm training, although there are obviously some days where I'm a little short on confidence, because this is even noticeable in training.

"You know that you've struggled. "Perhaps I just played one day or two days before and still have the image of the match in my head, which doesn't allow me to move forward.

"But in training I feel comfortable with my teammates. "People say that I go with a handbrake on.

"What's most difficult for me is to be aware of everything. "It annoys me when they say that I can do a lot of good things, because I ask myself why I'm not doing them."

During the recent victory over Atletico Madrid, Gomes was even whistled by some sections of the Camp Nou crowd, although his coach Ernesto Valverde tried to defend him.

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