It's nice to be getting properly into the season now with games coming every three or four days. Tomorrow night Barça play hosts to Sporting Gijon who have only managed one league win in 38 attempts in the corresponding fixture which was in 1987 though they certainly thumped us that day winning 0-4. Of course we will be without Leo Messi for the game but with Jeffren Suarez getting medical clearance today Messi is our only injured player at the moment. However, Eric Abidal will be absent again due to his grandfather's illness. Two players from Barça B, Thiago Alcantara and Nolito have been training with the first team in preparation for the game.

Sporting have started the season with a defeat...

It is not as bad as it looked at first, the foul from Atletico Madrid defender Ujfalusi on Leo Messi has produced ligament damage on Messi's right ankle but after examination this morning doctors have declared the injury will leave Messi sidelined for just two weeks. This means he could be back for the home game with Mallorca at the start of October while the most optimistic reports suggest he could even be back for the Champions League match at Rubin Kazan on September 29. However, he has definitely been ruled out for Wednesday's encounter with Sporting Gijon at Camp Nou and also for the trip to Athletic Bilbao on Saturday. Pep Guardiola will have to decide whether to bring in Bojan Krkic as a direct replacement for Messi while he also has...

Games between Atletico Madrid and Barça are nearly always spectacular and this was no exception. There may have only been three goals but the intensity lasted from start to finish. Leo Messi put us in front early on, Raul Garcia equalized for Atletico before Gerard Piqué made it 1-2 just after the half hour. We could have added a few more if it hadn't been for a great performance from Atletico's 19-year-old goalkeeper David De Gea which meant there were nerves right up to the end. We held out to win the three points, putting an end to a run of three consecutive league defeats in the Calderon. Sadly the game ended with Leo Messi...

Atletico Madrid versus Barça. Every season this game turns out to be something special. Last season it was the only game out of 38 in the league that we lost when Forlan and Simao scored early goals and despite Zlatan Ibrahimovic pulling one back Atletico held on to win 2-1. In the 2008/09 season we lost an absolutely crazy game 4-3 though for the chances for both teams it could have ended 7-7. The year before that we lost 4-2 despite an acrobatic overhead kick goal from Ronaldinho, and we have to go back to May 2007 for our last league victory at the Calderon when goals from Messi (2), Zambrotta, Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Iniesta gave us a 0-6 win. However, we also managed a win in the Copa del Rey in January 2009 when a Leo Messi hat-trick gave us a 1-3...

Barça began the long road to reach Wembley on May 28th with a comfortable 5-1 victory over Greek champions Panathinaikos. Sidney Govou shocked Camp Nou by putting Panathinaikos in front after 20 minutes but the difference in class was clear from the beginning and Barça hit back through Leo Messi twice, Villa, Pedro and Alves to put us top of Group D. in the other game in our group FC Copenhagen beat Rubin Kazan 1-0. 

After the failure of the "experiments" against Hercules, Pep Guardiola was taking no risks and named our theoretical strongest eleven from the start. The connections between the players were infinitely better than on Saturday and we began to create danger very quickly, after just two...

After the shock of the home defeat to Hercules on Saturday it is good to have another game so quickly as it gives us a chance to bounce back quickly. Greek champions Panathinaikos will be our first opponent in the 2010/11 Champions League, and our record against Greek teams at Camp Nou is excellent (five games, five victories, 21 goals scored, 2 goals conceded). Panathinaikos have played here twice, in 2002 we met in the Champions League quarter final second leg after a 1-0 defeat in Athens, two goals from Luis Enrique and one from Saviola gave us a 3-1 win which put us in the semi-finals. Then in the 2005/06 season we met in the group stage, this coincided with probably the best spell we had in...

Newly promoted Hercules shocked Barça and the football world with a 0-2 win at Camp Nou this afternoon. Two goals from Paraguayan Nelson Valdez left us without a reply to cause our first home league defeat since May 2009. Hercules are back in the Primera Division for the first time since the 1996/97 season when they also beat us at Camp Nou and completed a double with a win in Alicante that robbed us of the title that year. We will just have to hope that history does not repeat itself. 

Pep Guardiola often surprises with his team selections especially after international breaks or before Champions League games and this time he opted to leave Xavi, Busquets, Alves and Pedro on the bench. This meant a debut for Javier Mascherano but it was not to be a happy...

Every season we have to suffer a frustrating international break after playing just one league game. Having got a taste of proper competitive football after the summer this is the international break that most drives me nuts. However, tomorrow we are back to La Liga with the visit of newly promoted Hercules to Camp Nou (kick off 6pm), and this will be quickly followed by the opening Champions League game at home to Panathanaikos on Tuesday (8.45pm), and then league encounters at Atletico Madrid (Sunday 19th, 7pm) and at home to Sporting Gijon (Wednesday 22nd, 8pm).

Hercules played a few seasons in the Primera Division in the 1970s and 1980s but since then they have only managed one more season in the top...

I was interested to read yersterday's announcement that Barça's board of directors have passed a Code of Ethics for the correct running of the club with the aim of "excellence in management with transparency and honesty". The idea seems to be to finish with any bad practices that went on under the previous president Joan Laporta.

While this may all appear to be well and good, one has to wonder if anything is really going to change and what are the real motives behind such a move. In the world of politics there have been hundreds of occasions when a new president has promised transparency and honesty, only for things to continue pretty much the same once the new president is in power. Usually it is just another empty promise that is used as a way of criticising the...

With the transfer window finally closed until the winter break it is the time to have a look at our squad and assess our possibilities for this season. Once again our first team squad looks very small but this is something we are getting used to and the success of the last two seasons suggests we have nothing to worry about. This summer we have seen the departure of Rafa Marquez, Thierry Henry, Toure Yaya, Chygrynskiy and Ibrahimovic, while we have bought David Villa, Adriano and Mascherano. Of course this means we have two players less than last season but this gives the youngsters the chance to break through and this season I'm sure we will see more of the likes of Johnathan Dos Santos, Thiago Alcantara and Andreu Fontas.

For a long time this...