A new season begins, with a few players that have left: Suarez to Atlético, Vidal to Inter, and Semedo for Wolves and Rakitic to Sevilla. The institutional crisis is still very present. For Koeman, this will be his first official match as manager at the bench of Barcelona. However, Marc André ter Stegen, Martin Braithwaite, Jean-Clair Todibo and Matheus Fernandes are all injured. It will also be important for Barça to forget all recent negativity and focus on the test that Villarreal is, them being no easy opponent.
Current Form
Villarreal last 5 matches: LWDLW
1.Villarreal-Valencia: 1-2| Friendly|
2.Villarreal-Real Sociedad: 2-0 |Friendly|
3.Villarreal-Levante: 1-2 |Friendly|
4.Villarreal-Huesca: 1-1 |La Liga|
5.Villarreal-Eibar: 2-1 |La Liga|
‘The Yellow Submarine’ kicked off fairly well, dominating Huesca despite the end result might suggest otherwise. With Emery, Villarreal will most likely be a top five contender this season once again. To not add the fact the Yellow Submarine has purchased Parejo and Coquelin for peanuts and Kubo on loan from Real Madrid. Half-spaces are their speciality and Barcelona’s main weakness, lately. They will be our first big test.
Our last 3 matches: WWW
Barcelona-Gimnastic de Tarragona: 3-1 |Friendly|
Barcelona-Girona: 3-1|Friendly|
Barça-Elche: 1-0 |Friendly|
Reminder, Barcelona’s scheduled match of the first matchday didn’t take place as we participated in the Champions League Q.final. The match will take place in January, hence explaining why we didn’t play Matchday one and two. Nonetheless, we are allowed to start in an empty Camp Nou the 20/21 La Liga edition. A display that will be the first real test for Koeman, who notably seems to like Coutinho. No conclusions are to be taken from this match, but this match should finished with a convincing win instead of a worrying loss.
Squad List
These are the Barça players that will face Villarreal tomorrow:
Riqui Puig gets the call-up as announced yteserday. Interestingly enough, we don’t have that many midfielder anymore. Technically a bit more if you consider that many players can revert to midfield is necessary. The main surprise? Ramos Mingo, with his first call-up.
And we have loads, loads of forwards. How to manage all of them? Koeman will have to answer them. I believe that it may be a good idea to have loads of them considering the 5 subs rule – we could have a few wildcards there.
The same backline as usual, Dest is needed else we don’t have a single natural RB. Let’s see what this game will reserve to us!
One day before the match, Ronald Koeman faced the press, talking about some of the hottest topics out there. Here is his interview:
Positional play expressed through all phases of play, a football fan that fell in love with the Beautiful Game over 10 years ago. Occasionally writes about FC Barcelona for Barca_Buzz, on tactics and attempts to explain the game to the casual eye.
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