A preview of Barcelona's La Liga clash against Deportivo La Coruna on Saturday
FC Barcelona play their final La Liga match before their trip to Japan to contest the FIFA Club World Cup tomorrow, when they host Deportivo La Coruna at the Camp Nou. The Blaugrana enter the match without one of their star players, in-form striker Neymar who has been ruled out for the next couple of weeks with a groin injury, but they will be confident of securing the three points without him given the form of Luis Suarez and Andrés Iniesta.
The Uruguayan forward has come into his own this season, building upon an impressive debut season to utterly dominate in all competitions so far this campaign; with 19 goals across La Liga, the UEFA Champions League and the Super Cups, Suarez is our top scorer thus far this season. Heck, he’s top of the assist rankings at the club too, and when you piece it all together, he’s only six goals away from matching his tally from last season.
Remember, it’s only December.
With Lionel Messi working his way back to match sharpness after a lengthy spell on the sidelines, Suarez will continue to lead the team, performance-wise, this weekend and I certainly wouldn’t back against him from adding a couple more to his tally tomorrow afternoon. Interestingly, the injury to Neymar also (likely) provides Munir El Haddadi with another opportunity to shine in the first team.
Opinions regarding his performances so far this year have been mixed, but Munir boasts the best minutes to assists ratio amongst the first team squad – hardly a bad statistic to have in your favour. A selfless runner, Munir could make a name for himself in this game, or over the coming Club World Cup – just as we predicted he would when he burst onto the scene at the start of last season. Either way, as long as Barça keep winning, I don’t think I’ll worry too much.
TEAM NEWS
BARCELONA
Two games without a win! The sky is falling! Reaction to last weekend’s draw with Valencia CF has been entirely ridiculous if you have a Twitter account, or generally browse the internet – but fortunately no such idiocy ensued after the midweek draw with Bayer Leverkusen. The draw at the Mestalla could actually cost us at some stage further down the line, but really, it didn’t matter a lot. Barcelona still hold a healthy lead at the top of the table, and will remain in pole position for the festive break.
Well, barring some sort of disaster tomorrow anyway.
And I think we can feel relatively confident in our chances against Deportivo, who despite travelling well this season, haven’t really got the talent to challenge us on our own turf. Claudio Bravo will start in goal, and yes, he’s coming up against one of the in-form strikers in Spain in Lucas Perez – but he’s been in a good run of form as of late as well. So too has the defense ahead of him.
Dani Alves is back to his best at right-back; Gerard Piqué is at the top of his game both on and off the field, and Jordi Alba has been pretty great too. There are question marks around Javier Mascherano, but he’s had some good games as well – and he might not even start tomorrow either, Jeremy Mathieu’s recovery, coupled with the continued presence of Marc Bartra and Thomas Vermaelen hands Luis Enrique a selection dilemma.
An entirely welcome one though; this is much better than prior years, where we had to choose between Alex Song and Adriano Correia in the centre of defense after all.
The midfield picks itself; Sergio Busquets, Ivan Rakitić and Andrés Iniesta. The return of Sergi Roberto is sure to be met with cheers from the Blaugrana faithful; he was in quite incredible form prior to picking up his injury, but I suspect that Lucho will keep him in reserve, easing him back into the flow of things with a cameo appearance off the bench in the second half.
And we’ve spoken about the attack already; Lucas Perez might well continue his rich vein of form tomorrow, but can he and Deportivo La Coruna match, or out-gun our strikeforce of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Munir / Sandro (delete as appropriate)?
DEPORTIVO
Oriol Riera will miss out through injury, while head coach Victor Sánchez has taken the decision to leave attacking talents Celso Borges, Fede Cartabia and Jonas Gutierrez back in A Coruna. Essentially that’s confirmation of what we could have guessed all along; Deportivo will set out to earn a point with a solid and heavily-manned defense and in Lucas Perez they have a player that they hope can secure them a point (or three), even if it would be against the odds.
FORM GUIDE
Barcelona: WWWWDD
Deportivo:
LAST MEETING
FC Barcelona 2-2 Deportivo La Coruna – 23rd May 2015 – La Liga
Xavi made his final La Liga appearance on an emotional evening at the Camp Nou, as goals from Lucas Perez and Diogo Salamao ruined an otherwise good night for the Blaugrana.
LIKELY LINE-UPS
Barcelona (4-3-3): Bravo; Alves, Piqué, Vermaelen, Alba; Busquets, Rakitić, Iniesta; Messi, Suarez, Munir
Deportivo (4-2-3-1): Lux; Juanfran, Sidnei, Arribas, Navarro; Bergantinos, Fajr; Cani, Jonathan, Luisinho; Lucas
MATCH PREDICTION
A 3-1 home win.
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