La Liga- Barca vs Athletic Bilbao

Barcelona will bid to avenge their Spanish Super Cup defeat against Athletic Bilbao when they host Ernesto Valverde's side at the Nou Camp on Sunday.

Aritz Aduriz scored a stunning hat-trick for Athletic in a surprise 4-0 first-leg victory before the two teams played out a 1-1 draw in the concluding leg back in August.

Luis Enrique's side will head into Sunday's Primera Division clash, off the back of a 2-0 victory at Espanyol in the second leg of their Copa del Rey last-16 tie on Wednesday.

Munir El Haddadi, who deputised for the suspended Luis Suarez, scored twice as his side secured a comfortable 6-1 win on aggregate.

Following  comprehensive first-leg victory, Luis Enrique could afford to rest Neymar, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets and goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.

The quintet are all expected to be restored to Enrique's starting XI for the visit of Athletic, while Suarez is also in line to come in for El Haddadi, despite the 20-year-old's midweek goals.

The visitors will be missing Aduriz, scorer of 11 goals in 18 league starts, for their trip to the Nou Camp.

Aduriz is suspended while the club will also be without Raul Garcia after the Spain international was sidelined for the foreseeable future with a knee injury suffered at Sevilla last Saturday.
Barcelona will be expected to win this game - but Enrique's men have won only three of their last six league matches and have been usurped by Atletico Madrid at the top of the table.

Lucho Presser:

“It will be a game without respite and without concessions.

“The two teams know each other well and there won’t be an easy ball in the game, they are a complete team.

“I have the first leg from the Spanish Super Cup final as a reference and they stopped us winning six trophies.”

“They are a club that I have admired for years. We have a motivation as they stopped us winning the sixth trophy of the year. I would have preferred another team [in the Copa del Rey] due to the fixture list.”

On new boys Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal, the coach had this to say: “Their performances have not surprised me because they have been training all these months, but I think they will improve as they get match fitness.”

Finally, he highlighted the challenges facing his team: “This month of January, if we get through in the cup we will have a busy February as well. The last third of the season is almost upon us and the best bit of the campaign is coming up. It isn’t a problem, it’s motivating.”

Barcelona team vs. Bilbao:
Bravo; Vidal, Pique, Mascherano, Alba; Busquets, Iniesta, Rakitic; Messi, Suarez, Neymar

Great choices.

Alves.

Meh, easy 4 - 2 win for barca. Dishman got this

Penalty- OK
Red card- not ok

Pirloisjesus wrote:Penalty- OK
Red card- not ok

Why not?

Was slightest bit touch imo. Yellow maybe.

Iniesta and busi doing great imo.

It was late challenge from GK, open goal chance, I might be wrong but in this case it is red no matter how hard is the challenge! Can anyone confirm this?

Dem srappy first touches

Neymar has made some awful decisions this game.

Is it just me or Suarez has been quite stingy of late, say since his last 10/12 matches to date. Started since october/november tbh.. Yes I know he gave 2 assist in the last game but still, even cr7 gives assists too!

Maybe I'm wrong tho.

Bankz wrote:Is it just me or Suarez has been quite stingy of late, say since his last 10/12 matches to date. Started since october/november tbh.. Yes I know he gave 2 assist in the last game but still, even cr7 gives assists too!

Maybe I'm wrong tho.

Maybe slightly but probably because he hasn't scored in a while. that's what strikers are like.

And that too for neymar. Quite a strange player if you ask me. When u expect him to shoot he passes and when u expect him to pass he'll decide to shoot or dribble..

banks you spoke to soon

Take that

And dishmar scores and guess who gives the assist!!!

Shouldn't they name this control after neymar by now?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g7a0la8vxqY

Messi substituted

Messi gets injured, Neymar steps up again

I'm starting to see a pattern here...

This.
there's definitely some correlation

Bankz wrote:Shouldn't they name this control after neymar by now?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g7a0la8vxqY

Neymarinha.

I really like Pique and have huge admiration for him but sometimes his decisions are so I hate to say the word but Stupid that he comes out as freaking retarded moron. Just needs to stop those schoolboy errors ffs.

As I said, Vidal is gonna be a more important piece and better player for Barca than what Turan will turnout to be.