Barcelona welcome Valencia to the Nou Camp on Sunday – live on Sky Sports 3 HD from 7.15pm – hoping to recover their La Liga title challenge on track.
Luis Enrique’s side have lost three of their last four matches in all rivalries, leaving the Champions League to Atletico Madrid and seeing their lead at the highest point of the table slice to one point after annihilations to Real Sociedad and Real Madrid.
Given their principles, it is a genuinely disturbing slip, and the Camp Nou will expect better when Pako Ayesteran’s Valencia come approaching Sunday evening.
Ayesteran, who has supplanted Gary Neville in the Los Che hotseat, has encountered a misfortune and a win amid his transitory spell in control in this way, with the triumph coming in sensational circumstances in the last phases of a weekend ago’s conflict with Sevilla.
Barcelona
Luis Suarez was suspended for the last Liga clash at Real Sociedad, but he returned for the Champions League tie at Atletico Madrid. Despite that defeat, Luis Enrique is likely to name the same “Gala XI” this time around, with Claudio Bravo obviously returning in goal.
Arda Turan is suspended for this game anyway, and despite their substitutions just after the hour mark when they were chasing the game in Madrid, Dani Alves and Ivan Rakitic are likely to be retained here.
Sandro and Jeremy Mathieu are both still out injured.
Possible XI: Bravo, Alves, Pique, Mascherano, Alba, Busquets, Rakitic, Iniesta, Neymar, Messi, Suarez.
Valencia
Zakaria Bakkali and the on-loan Denis Cheryshev are both still out injured for Valencia, and Pako Ayesteran faces the question of whether or not to start with Alvaro Negredo following his late goalscoring intervention as a substitute last weekend.
The interim boss is more likely to stick with the more mobile Paco Alcacer from the start, though, with Santi Mina and Rodrigo providing attacking support from out wide.
Andre Gomes, Javi Fuego and Dani Parejo are going to need to be energetic in midfield.
Possible XI: Diego Alves, Barragan, Abdennour, Mustafi, Siqueira, Gomes, Fuego, Parejo, Santi Mina, Rodrigo, Alcacer.
