Match Preview : Barça VS Osasuna

Another day, another cup game and yet another important game in our season. It’s only the beginning of the new year, but tonight’s game could act as an important catalyst for the rest of the season. Away in Saudi Arabia, its the Spanish super cup semi final. Live at 9pm local time, its Barça vs Osasuna.

Not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination, and even on a neutral ground it will still be a very good test for this Barça side. We all know what this team is capable of, we’ve seen it. Now all we all want to see if for this team to finally kick on. We know what our troubles are at the moment, its been the story of our season with our ineffectiveness in front of goal. So tonight’s game should act as a chance for us to finally put it right. It wont be a straightforward game.

Osasuna are a good team and well drilled, especially defensively. So its a solid test away in Saudi. Let’s jump straight into it.

A Quick Look at our opponents:

Like I’ve just mentioned, our opponents for tonight is Osasuna. They’re coming off the back of a very impressive season in La Liga. And although it can be said they haven’t matched those heights this season, they’re still a very good team. And in one of the games of their season, they’re definitely going to be very difficult to beat and break down. Players like Avilla, Budimir always cause a problem. And defensively they’re very solid.

Osasuna currently find themselves 12th in La Liga. 3 points off the top 10. They’ve scored a total of 22 goals this season and conceded 29. Which is only 7 more than what we’ve conceded. So its not to far away. We’ve massively underachieved in front of goal this year and that’s backed up by the fact that we’ve only scored 14 more than Osasuna.

Predicted lineup:

Coming into the game we’ve had some good news on the injury front. Ter Stegen is expected to be back a couple weeks earlier than expected. Whilst Pedri trained with the group again in yesterdays session. Cancelo is also with the team, but he trained on the sidelines yesterday away from the group so I wouldn’t expect him to be in the starting lineup. Which means we’ll most likely see the return of B.A.C.K.

In midfield, although Pedri is nearing his return it would be dumb to chuck him straight in. Fermin Lopez had an incredible game in midweek. He’s a super talent who offers us so much creativity and energy. So I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t start. Yeah Roberto has been decent recently, but we need Fermin in the midfield. Alongside Gundogan and Frenkie. With Romeu back on the bench.

In attack, it would be amazing to see Roque start. He’s only played 40 minutes or so, so far, and should probably already have a goals. He’s refreshing to watch in the frontline and a really exciting part of the future. But I don’t think he’ll start tonight. As it will most likely be a front three like we saw against Las Palmas. Felix wasn’t bad in midweek, but I’m not sure he showed the right atttiude to keep his place again. Raphinha has been good in our last two games, but it would be nice to see Yamal start in this one. Although, i doubt that’ll happen.