Saturday, 4 January 2020 21:00 BARCELONA TIME RCDE Stadium BARCELONA PREVIOUS MEETINGS SLL 30-03-2019 FT Barcelona 2 : 0 Espanyol SLL 08-12-2018 FT Espanyol 0 : 4 Barcelona ICF 07-03-2018 PEN Barcelona 0 : 0 Espanyol SLL 04-02-2018 FT Espanyol 1 : 1 Barcelona SCdR 25-01-2018 FT Barcelona 2 : 0 Espanyol SCdR 17-01-2018 FT Espanyol 1 : 0 Barcelona VISCAELBARCA
In danger of Liga suspension... 1 booking away: Lenglet, Suárez 2 more yellows: Piqué Upcoming Liga fixtures J20 (H) Granada J21 (A) Valencia J22 (H) Levante
MAtS to miss out, injured knee (expected to miss Super Copa too), as are Dembele and Arthur (now estimated at 3 weeks). Todibo and Wague miss by coach's decision as far as I know. Alena out on loan now at Betis.
Would of made more sense to send Puig on loan IMO. Needs to go a level or 2 higher than Spanish third division. But riding the Barca A bench is also not going to help his development much. So 6-month loan for Puig makes the most sense to me. Well, guess there is still 28 days to get that done.
Well ... Alena wanted to go. You either give him more minutes or keep him unhappy if you don't loan him out.
It also sounds like he had a provision in his contract which allowed him to force the loan if not getting enough minutes. That's what I understood from Valverde's pre-match interview: Valverde said he didn't want him to leave but he could not stop it: "I thought if it happened, it would not be so soon, but his contract allowed it. "In August we managed to get him to stay, (but) now he has a clause which allowed him to leave." The Barça boss is hopeful it will be the only departure this month and that other players, like Todibo and Vidal who have been linked with moved away, will stay. "We have one player less and we will see what happens," he added. "We don't think there will be another departure and we're counting on the players from the B team, with Riqui Puig and the rest." https://www.sport.es/en/news/barca/...rles-alena-to-join-real-betis-on-loan-7793632
Lineup about what I expected given the injuries to ter Stegen and Arthur and Dembele. 5 La Masia starters who should know the importance of not letting Espanyol's 20th place position fool you, they'll fight for it, even if the team has less Liga goals than Messi (12 to 13). Also worth noting that Espanyol did qualify for Europa elimination rounds, which is admirable (and seems surprising for a last place club) and may also have stretched them too much. They drew Wolves so probably won't have to worry about that competition for long, though Copa may also stretch them. Big win for Barca B over Espanyol B today, 2-0, and now we are at least for the moment in the last playoff spot. Interestingly the 3 clubs now ahead of us, including Espanyol, all lost; however, the joy is muted as the clubs which beat them are also in the hunt for the top 4 (in order to make playoffs to get promoted to Segunda).
Barca wouldn't have won anyway, this team will eventually crumble and end 3rd behind LPB and ATM/Sevilla with this useless coach.
Rakitic is just to slow for this back and forth! Dang, Suarez with some magic right now. I hate seeing Valverdes face, he just looks so complacent!
First 40 minutes might've been the slowest football I have seen all season. Last 6 minutes were alot better, then ref blows the whistle way prematurely with Barca in possession deep in Espanyol territory.
We have clueless coach who plays useless out of form and shape players when you have a midfielder in Vidal who keeps scoring goals and breaks patterns. No wonder he wants to leave!