If you were already worried about how we would form a defence for Sunday's game at Atletico Madrid, today the news got worse with a thigh injury to Eric Abidal which the firsts tests say will keep him out of action for between six and eight weeks. It's a great shame because Eric has been in such fantastic form recently and we will miss his speed at the back. It's been a bad week for injuries as we already have Dani Alves out for three weeks and Toure Yaya for ten days. Added to this we will be without Piqué and Marquez on Sunday due to the red cards in Saturday's victory over Getafe which means we only have four first team defenders available. The logical back four will see a Milito and Chygrynskiy partnership in the centre with Puyol at right back and Maxwell on the left. Marc Bartra and...

Barça earned another three points tonight after a heroic 2-1 win over Getrafe. An early goal from Leo Messi seemed to have put us on the road to an easy victory but the game was complicated by the sending off of Gerard Piqué after 25 minutes. However, we adapted superbly to the circumstances and had the better chances during the rest of the game, Xavi scored our second midway through the second half and Getafe had to wait until injury time to pull a goal back after Rafa Marquez gave away a penalty. Marquez was also sent off for this foul and we therefore finioshed the game with nine men but fortunately there was not time for Getafe to look for the equalizer.

Barça had to change plans after Dani Alves noticed a muscle...

Dani Alves is fit again and should return to the team for tomorrow night's game with Getafe at Camp Nou (kick off 8pm). However, captain Carles Puyol is suspended for the game and we should not forget that we have only lost two games all season, against Rubin Kazan and Sevilla, and Puyol missed both these games. Puyol's absence will mean that Pep Guardiola has to chose again between Rafa Marquez, Dmytro Chygrynskiy and Gabi Milito for who to partner Gerard Piqué in the centre of defence. He will also have to decide again between Sergio Busquets and Toure Yaya, and between Pedro and Thierry Henry. I think that if Toure doesn't get a game tomorrow it will be the clearest sign yet that Busquets has Guardiola's preference and I'm sure we will...

As most of you will know Joan Laporta is coming to the end of his mandate and there will be elections on Jun 13 to see who will replace him as Barça's next president. These elections can be very unpredictable as was seen in 2003 when Laporta came from well behind in the polls to defeat the favourite Luis Bassat. This time round the early favourite is Sandro Rosell who is very well known by culés, having formed part of Laporta's original board of directors and been credited with the signing of Ronaldinho. I wrote more about Rosell at the time of the mocion de censura against Laporta in the summer 2008 (Click here to read what I said then).

I think it is normal that Rosell is the early...

Some might say that we had mixed fortunes in January, we lost our first points at home in the 1-1 draw with Villarreal and then we were knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Sevilla, however, we won five out of seven games with a goal difference of sixteen goals for and only three against which can hardly be looked at badly, especially if we consider we were only two points above Real Madrid at the start of the month and we have now extended our lead to five points.

I had a list of eight players who I thought might make it into the top five for January but having now checked through my player ratings for the month and worked out the averages I can inform you that the winner is Leo Messi for the third time this season. It is...

Barça continue the march to retain La Liga this season after a 0-1 win over Sporting Gijon in El Molinon. A goal from Pedro Rodriguez, who was preferred over Thierry Henry, after half an hour was enough to earn the three points, but the failure to convert our dominance into more goals meant we had to suffer a couple of nervous moments in the final minutes.

There was not a lot of action in the first ten minutes but we did not take long to take control of the game. In the 12th minute Messi played a fantastic nutmeg before slipping the ball forward to Xavi who flicked it on for Iniesta who got into the area but his shot hit Sporting's keeper Juan Pablo on the shoulder and flew over the bar. A minute later Pedro put the ball in...

Barça begin the second half of the league season with a trip to El Molinon to face Sporting Gijon tomorrow (kick off 8pm). We will be without Dani Alves who has a slight calf strain and Seydou Keita who is suspended after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season in last week's win at Valladolid. However, Sergio Busquets is fit again and Toure Yaya is back after the African Cup, and the big question tomorrow is which of these two players will get the job of the defensive midfield role. There was talk before the African Cup that Busquets was getting more minutes to give him the match practice to have him ready to cover for Toure during his absense during the African Cup. Tomorrow there will be no such excuse...

Are they getting more difficult? Well maybe, but if they were easy it would be answered in five minutes. This time I want to know:

1) The names of the eleven players in the picture (or as many as you can get)

2) Our opponents and the occasion.

3) The final score and our goalscorer(s).

4) Who our coach was at the time.

5) The exact date of the match.

Having reached the halfway point in this season's league it is time for a little reflection on how things are going. It is true that the team is not quite playing at the extraordinary levels set last season but the balance so far this time round can only be described as very positive. At the same stage last season we had accumulated 50 points from the first 19 league games while scoring 59 goals and conceding 13, this season we have one point less and have netted 49 goals with only 10 against. However, we have also added the Spanish Supercopa, the European Supercup and the Club World Cup to our trophy collection while the negative side has been the elimination from the Copa del Rey.

Last season we stood out for our incredible attacking football but this...

Football Club Barcelona moved eight points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga after a comfortable 0-3 win at Valladolid tonight. Two first half goals in the space of a minute from Xavi Hernandez and Dani Alves made the game relatively easy and Leo Messi completed the scoring in the second half with his 15th league goal of the season. At the half way stage in the league season this team continue to break records: we became only the fifth team in the history of La Liga to go the first half of the season unbeaten and we have become the team to let in the fewest goals away from home at this stage of the season with only four goals conceded so far on our travels. Much of this has to be down to Victor Valdés who had another good match, making...