Match Preview : Deportivo Alavés VS Barça

It’s another day and yet another match day for Barça. This time, we’re back in La Liga action. For the last time before another international break. From 4:15pm local time, its Barcelona against Deportivo Alavés. It’s another one of those tricky away fixtures in the league, so lets jump straight into the preview.

A Quick Look at our opponents:

Deportivo Alavés are always a team that are between mid table and the relegation zone. Generally they’ll always spend a few Seasons in the primera division and then slide back down the the segunda. However, they always are a difficult side to break down, especially at home. So yet again we can’t afford to take them lightly, every game right now is vitally important. They currently find themselves in 11th placed in the table, so comfortably in the middle of the table.. 7 points off last place and 11 points off top spot in the league. They’re goal scored to conceded ratio is pretty even. Scoring 11 and conceding just one more. In fact they’re 11 goals is 14 off the 25 goals Barcelona have scored so far. However they’ve only conceded 3 more goals than us, so defensively we’re very similar in that respect. No doubt about it though, its not going to be a straight forward game especially with the number of absentees we have. But ahead of another international break, its yet another huge game already in the league. 

Predicted lineup:

Coming into the game this afternoon, i still think we’ll see a few changes to the lineup that faced Young Boys in midweek, however I don’t think they’ll be anything drastic. One piece of news to highlight coming from the last week is the arrival of Scezney on a one year contract as the replacement for Ter Stegen. So that’s a brilliant signing, but unfortunately he wont be available until after the international break. Which means at least one more game with Iñaki Pena starting in goal. One change that simply must happen against Alavés is Ferran Torres. He’s been given enough chances over the last few weeks and hasn’t offered anything. So its only fair to give someone else a chance. That could either be with Pablo Torre, shifting Raphinha back to the left. Or, we could see Raphinha in a more central position with Ansu Fati or Pau Victor on the left hand side. Eric Garcia could also make a return to the lineup. However apart from that, i think things will remain the same from our last game.

My starting lineup:

Peña

Kounde- Cubarsi- Iñigo- Balde

Pedri- Casado

Yamal- Raphinha- Ansu

Lewandowski 

Ryan Edwards