La Liga- Malaga vs Barca

PREVIEW:

The next Barcelona match is upon us! The Blaugrana travel to Andalucía for a difficult, key La Liga match against Málaga. And coach Luis Enrique has already chosen his preferred squad for this Saturday's clash.

The announcement of the squad list brought mixed emotions for Barça fans: first, happiness of seeing Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez set to make their returns to the Blaugrana team. Both missed the Copa del Rey match against Athletic Bilbao in midweek (rest for Messi, suspension for Suárez), and are available and set to start at La Rosaleda. But it's not all flowers for the Blaugranes, with the final piece of the 'MSN' trio, Neymar Jr., missing this weekend's fixture due to muscle discomfort.

Jordi Alba, missing his second game in a row, joins Neymar and Rafinha Alcântara as injury absentees. Douglas and Jordi Masip are not included per coach's decision. Gerard Piqué is out with an automatic one-game suspension for card accumulation. Finally, these are the eighteen men named by Lucho for the game:

Goalkeepers: 1. Marc-André ter Stegen, 13. Claudio Bravo

Defenders: 6. Dani Alves, 14. Javier Mascherano, 15. Marc Bartra, 21. Adriano Correia, 22. Aleix Vidal, 23. Thomas Vermaelen, 24. Jérémy Mathieu

Midfielders: 4. Ivan Rakitic, 5. Sergio Busquets, 7. Arda Turan, 8. Andrés Iniesta, 20. Sergi Roberto

Forwards: 9. Luis Suárez, 10. Lionel Messi, 17. Munir El-Haddadi, 19. Sandro Ramírez

Projected Starting Lineup (4-3-3):

Bravo; Alves, Mascherano, Vermaelen, Mathieu; Busquets, Rakitic, Arda; Messi, Suárez, Munir

God please not Matthew

Why are we so shit-ish

fatigue kicking in, messi is still injured
our whole backline is our substitutes

Thats some dope defending by Malaga tbh

Messiah with dem kung fu kicks

Easily one of the toughest opponents of the season. My gosh, Malaga are so hard to brake.

Lack of Neymar on the left was glaring.

Not much to say about the game, it was quite dirty, 3 points is what matters. Now onto Atletico... at least the MSN will be back together.

this is the result of three derbies, two athletic games back after back.
the team is dead tired and half injured lol

anyways messi is a god even out of form still wins us matches

Wasnt entirely a fatigue thing really, thats how every Malaga game looked so far in Enriques era. They simply have something on Barca and its pretty obvious.

Defence was a disaster though. Verm-Masch-Adriano combination was never going to be a good thing... You never know with these three.

linetty wrote:Easily one of the toughest opponents of the season. My gosh, Malaga are so hard to brake.

Lack of Neymar on the left was glaring.

Not much to say about the game, it was quite dirty, 3 points is what matters. Now onto Atletico... at least the MSN will be back together.

This
Also I was quite impressed with Rakitic. Since he came on we were more compact and solid in defence.

fatigue has nothing to do with it??
i don't think we would play adriano, whom only had 3 starts all season nor rest alves
neymar/messi get hamstrings around the same time, sergi roberto playing LB after our glass cannon gets injured

not taking credit away from malaga but if we had a full team today, with all the space they were giving us neymar / fit messi would of ran circles around them

Didnt say it had nothing to do with it. I meant it wasnt the main reason.

Ofcourse our backline could have looked differently and maybe kept the goal safer but still the way Malaga play is a nightmare for us. They just make us suffer greatly, doesnt matter if we miss some player, even the key ones.

Well Malaga were in decent form and they're always hard to break down. Managed to get the win without playing well at all, so I can't have any complaints.

Vermalo, Mascherano facepalm.
At this point I'm confident to say Turan was a completely unnecessary signing. He's not much better than Rafinha and Roberto and has only present.

free_cat wrote:Vermalo, Mascherano facepalm.
At this point I'm confident to say Turan was a completely unnecessary signing. He's not much better than Rafinha and Roberto and has only present.

Not saying he is better, but isn't this too early to say?

Yeah, it is.

He went half a year without club football and yet he's doing better than I even expected. 2 assists already, though he's clearly doing better in the middle of the park than on the wing. He'll come in handy when the going gets really tough, perfect for rotation thus will keep the squad fresh.

eelir wrote:

free_cat wrote:Vermalo, Mascherano facepalm.
At this point I'm confident to say Turan was a completely unnecessary signing. He's not much better than Rafinha and Roberto and has only present.

Not saying he is better, but isn't this too early to say?

Maybe if you didn't watch him at Atletico, ever.... It's not like he is an unknown youngster.

linetty wrote:He went half a year without club football and yet he's doing better than I even expected. 2 assists already, though he's clearly doing better in the middle of the park than on the wing. He'll come in handy when the going gets really tough, perfect for rotation thus will keep the squad fresh.

He was awful vs Malaga in the middle of the park.

Also, I wonder why no one says anything about the show of mistakes from our CBs....

What is the there to say lol? We've seen it all and it's even not worthy of a comment. Adriano can't defend for shit but he'll probably leave for Roma soon. Verms and Masch was never going to be a good combination as they're both fcking ticking bombs. Vidal still lacks chemistry with the rest of the players.

These were the effects of heavy rotation. The risk was clear but it was very much needed since really tough games are still awaiting us this month.

Well, there is to say that Vermaelen is one of the worst CB we've had since Dehu.

Did you see Pepe and Danilo yesterday lol? Shit happens and the game is what it is. Verms is not THAT bad. Defense just lacked Pique.

There's nothing to worry about. We're looking fine going into the business part of the season.

Can be 7 points clear off RM if we beat Atleti at CN. That's what matters.