Match Preview : Barça VS Girona

Match Preview : Barça VS Girona – La Liga

Less than 72 hours on from our last league game, we are back in action yet again with another La Liga fixture. This of course is the very beginning of an intense, and quite frankly, ridiculous schedule for Barça. And it’s another big game, another vital game in our league campaign. It’s the Catalan derby. Live from the Estadi Olympic Lluis Companys, live from 4:15pm local time, it’s Barça against Girona.

And like I’ve said already, its another huge game in the title race and is the beginning of our last 10 games in La Liga this season. It’s a vital one, so let’s jump straight to it.

A Quick Look at our opponent:

Now, this season has been quite a massive contrast between what Girona were like last season compared to now. Last season, of course, they massively overachieved and secured a historic top 4 in the league. European football and battling for the title. This year however, couldn’t be further from that. They sit comfortably in mid table and have struggled a lot more this campaign.

That is however, i would say, to be expected considering most of their best players from last year had left in the summer. It was always going to be a one season thing. But that doesn’t mean they’re a bad team, they’ve still got a number of talented players. And also have current Barça loanee, Romeu, in their midfield. In terms of all round stats for the season, they’ve scored a total of 36 goals and conceded 41. Which turns out to be 14 more conceded than ourselves. And in terms of goal scoring, not many teams in Europe get close to Barça, let alone just in La Liga.

The thing that will make this game more difficult is the short turn around from our last game and the fact that we will have to rest and rotate some key players. And that is what makes this game a lot more trickier than it would be, regardless of Girona’s form.

Predicted lineup:

As I’ve just mentioned, the factor that makes this game a lot more difficult is the number of possible rotations to key players in the lineup. Straight off the back I’d be looking at Lamine and Pedri. They’ve both played an incredible amount of football over the last few weeks, and ahead of such a massive week in the Copa Del Rey, its important that our big stars like Pedri and Lamine get a well deserved rest.

Pedri might possibly start again, but i could definitely see Lamine getting a rest. Raphinha is also back in the squad and is expected to make his way back in the starting lineup. Same for Lewandowski too. Which is great news. Cubarsi may also get himself back in contention, but we’ll have to wait and see there. The other player I’d keep an eye on too would be Kounde. Again, same with Pedri and Lamine, he has played a lot of football for us. We have to be careful though, it is a big game and we cant rotate too many players. But i think we will definitely see at least 2 “big names” on the bench. Ahead of a very packed schedule.