Match Preview : Barça VS Valencia – La Liga

After a long and strenuous international break, Barça are finally back in action, this time in La Liga, with an interesting test vs Valencia. Live from 9pm local time, and unfortunately not from the Spotify Camp Nou, it’s the game that marks the beginning of a tricky week of games. We’ll have to pick ourselves up in front of only 6k fans at the Estadi Johan Cruyff. And we’ll have to do so without some of our very best and most important players. Although Valencia aren’t as strong as they have been in recent years, they will still provide a tricky test for us, especially in our small stadium, it’s definitely going to feel like a strange game. But whatever is happening in the background, the only important thing is the 3 points at the end of it. And that’s what we’re going to be looking for.

As we look at the game as a whole, Valencia aren’t definitely a team that can cause problems, they can be an awkward team to face and they do field a number of greatly talented player from their academy, so it’s definitely going to be a test. For me, the fact that we are playing in our B team stadium, will mean that the game has a different feel to it. You cant call on what the atmosphere will be like seeing as we’ve never played a competitive game there before. However, it cant be an excuse, and considering how poorly we entered the international break, the result tonight has even more importance rested upon it.

Starting Lineup 

In terms of our lineup, like i mentioned previously, we’re heading into a difficult week without some of our key players. We already knew that we’d be without Balde, after he picked up a small injury in training at the beginning of the international break. Gavi, also, is expected to miss the next few weeks with discomfort in his knee area. The club and the player really do want to be careful about this, which is the right thing to do. But again, it’s another hue player gone from our team. A key player. Frenkie De Jong too, will most likely miss the game too, although he has returned back to training after a slight knock. And lastly, just recently due to a complete lack of thought from the Spanish national team over the break, we will now also be without Lamine Yamal for the game tonight, and most likely against Newcastle in midweek. And its just terrible news. Those 4 are not only brilliant players individually, but so key for the way we play and create as team. So its going to be interesting to see what Flick decides to do in order to rotate the squad. Below is my predictions on what we could possibly see tonight against Valencia.

My starting 11:

Joan Garcia

Kounde- Christensen- Cubarsi- Martin

Pedri- Casado

Roony- Fermin- Raphinha

Lewandowski

Ryan Edwards