Match Preview : Barça VS Alavés

Match Preview : Barça VS Alavés – La Liga

Another day, another huge weekend of football for Barça. This time coming at a slightly different time of day, with us playing our next La Liga game at lunchtime on a Sunday afternoon. Live from the Estadi Olympic from 1pm local time, it’s Barcelona against Alavés.

After some of the weekends results so far, it adds even more importance onto a game which was already important enough. It’s another one of those games too where its against a low league team, at home. We haven’t enjoyed many of those this season, but we’ll be looking onto our recent form to pull us through.

Although they are placed low in the league, once again, it doesn’t mean we can just overlook that. It’s another tricky one, so lets jump straight into the preview.

A Quick Look at our opponents:

We have already faced Alavés this season. A long way back near the beginning of the season. Back then, a Robert Lewandowski hat trick was more than enough to pull us through. They haven’t enjoyed a very good season, seeing themselves firmly in the bottom three.

But again, like i mentioned above, we can’t afford to overlook that. We don’t have the right quite frankly especially in La Liga, to overlook teams. Like Alavés who are a long way down the table. Up to this point of the season, they’ve scored a total of 25 goals, which is 34 less than the leagues top scorer, Barca. And they’ve also conceded a total number of 33 goals, which funnily enough only 9 goals more than us.

Predicted lineup:

Turning our attention back to ourselves, when it comes to the lineup, i would imagine Flick will go. Strong. What’s good is that during the midweek game against Atalanta, we were able to rest Cubarsi. So he will most likely return to the starting eleven. Araujo will partner alongside him, but Eric is also there too as cover. And Iñigo Martinez is also expected to be back in the squad too.

In midfield, Casado definitely deserves a rest, he’s been a class addition to the team this season and has been underrated too. But he must get a rest. In that case, id like to see Pedri and Gavi in the pivot again however i wont be surprised if Frenkie gets a start. With Fermin at the 10.

Yamal and Raphinha off the wings. And for me, as much as Lewandowski has been important this season. I really want to see Ferran torres at striker again like we did against Betis and Valencia recently. With the idea of seeing that fluid movement upfront again. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lewandowski start and there’s no problem with that, but it would be interesting to see if Flick decides to go with Ferran. I’d also start Iñaki Pena between the sticks.