#8 - Javi Martínez

hard to say.

In any case, Pep was planning of playing him in the middle of a three man defense (as in the cup final), not in midfield. Martinez was supposed to be integral for this.
Here's how Javi is quoted in the 'Pep Confidential' book regarding this game/position

‘He’s designed my perfect position. Finally I’ve got the right position in the right system which allows me to give my very best,’ says Martínez.

Of course now Pep has adapted that formation to him being out and we added Benatia, and Alonso, due to that.
Safe to say that IF all our injured players were back at the same time, you couldn't really speak of a 'starting XI'.

At 26 , he deserves to play every game. I'm eager to see him play. With Alaba injuried, he'd get his minutes I guess.

You guys have insane depth. is Batsuber still injuried ? ... when is he coming back ?

Alaba's (hopefully) coming back before Martinez, Badstuber should be back a little earlier too.

The perceived depth we have now is only because Javi got injured while the transfer window was still open. If we hadn't bought Benatia we'd had only Boateng, Dante and Badstuber coming back from over a year out. With Badstuber then out too we would only have had 2 CBs.
Since Badstuber and Martinez are both on certified long term injuries we still have only 3 CBs for the whole at least first half of the season, that's not really insanely deep.

Of course that means IF everyone is back and fit at the same time, with Boateng, Benatia, Badstuber, Martinez and Dante we'd indeed have 'insane depth' in defense.

Reports in the last months revealed just how bad his injury was - billed as a ACL tear, in fact the outer ligament, capsule and meniscus were damaged too.

Back in team training today.