Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone has claimed that Sunday's surprise 2-0 home defeat to Espanyol was down to the fact that he does not have a big enough squad.

Simeone made a number of changes following Thursday's 1-0 victory over Arsenal in the second leg of their Europa League semi-final, and Atletico lost their first home league match of the season to the Catalan outfit.

The Atletico manager has admitted that he simply does not have the players to fully rotate his squad.

"We have very few players and this can be problematic," Marca quotes Simeone as saying. "For this game we had [Diego] Costa and [Angel] Correa suspended, Gabi and [Diego] Godin are both 32 and they both put in a lot of energy to Thursday, as did [Antoine] Griezmann.

"We have a busy schedule and with the size of our squad, you have to accept that these things will happen."

Atletico remain second in the table behind Barcelona, but third-placed Real Madrid are just three points behind their capital rivals with a game in hand.