Preview: Deportivo - Barça
Friday, 04 December 09, 12:54 PM · Comments (12)
Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets return to the squad for tomorrow night's game in Riazor against Deportivo de La Coruña (kick off 10pm), while there is no place on Pep Guardiola's list for Rafa Marquez, Jeffren Suarez and Johnathan dos Santos. There are bound to be some changes to the team that won unimpressively in Jerez and we can expect to see a return to the starting XI for Leo Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Carles Puyol, Piqué and Eric Abidal.
Deportivo will be without Lassad Nouioui, injured in last week's 0-1 win at Racing, and first choice striker Riki who pulled a muscle in training today. Rodolfo Bodipo could return in attack after recovering from a stomach problem or coach Miguel Angel Lotina could decide to play Adrian Lopez or move Mista forward to the centre forward position. Whatever the case, this will not be an easy game for Barça, ever since the early 1990s when Deportivo rose to prominance, earning themselves the nickname of Super Depor, we have had problems in Riazor, and we have only won on three of our previous 17 visits to play in La Coruña. Depor are currently sitting in 5th place in La Liga with 25 points and they have a home record of 4 wins 1 draw and 1 defeat, their most important victory being the 1-0 win over Sevilla in October. Last season's corresponding fixture ended in a 1-1 draw when Samuel Eto'o scored his last goal for Barça with a late equalizer that took his total for the league season to 30, however, the game was pretty meaningless to us as we had already been crowned league champions two weeks before.
We should expect a better performance from the team tomorrow, as Pep Guardiola said in today's press conference "we will not accept just winning, it is necessary to continue trying to do things better because that is how we have won respect, and respect is something we need to continue to earn." Once again it will be interesting to see if Guardiola prefers Sergio Busquets or Toure Yaya in the defensive midfield role, and the decision is likely to continue to cause debate amonst the fans. I have a feeling he will again go with Busquets and I suspect something has happened between Toure and Guardiola that has not been revealed to the press.
Hopefully we will see the benefit of the rest to key players against Xerez and we will see a performance more in line with the victories over Inter and Madrid. However, our lack of form in away games is still a worry and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we drop points again tomorrow. Although we always want to win that I feel a draw away to the fifth team in the league would not be such a bad result.
Barça's 18-man squad: Valdés, Pinto, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Chygrynskiy, Maxwell, Abidal, Xavi, Busquets, Toure, Keita, Iniesta, Messi, Pedro, Ibrahimovic, Bojan, Henry.
Possible starting XI: Valdés; Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Abidal; Xavi, Busquets, Keita; Messi, Ibrahimovic, Iniesta.
My prediction: Depor 1 Barça 1
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Posted by fcbnews_nic
| Comments (12)
12 Comments · Add yours
personally, i think yaya is better than sergi,
it might just be me, but there is just something i don't like about him, i just don't know what it is
I would like to see xavi on the bench for this match, he has been given little rest lately and i don't want any fatigue or injury on him. it would also show if iniesta have what it takes to control the midfield
my prediction is 1-3
i really wont like us to draw this match, we should go for the win, i believe this is a critical time in the running for the league relative to madrid...
deportivo 1 - 2 barca
LINK
hope thats true
A bit surprised to see Chygry's name before Marquez but hopefully Chygry's going to be an unused sub in the match.
I agree a draw is the most probable outcome but having said that we shouldn't play for one at the outset, get complacent and drop all 3 points. We should go for the win and if we end up with a draw so be it.
@Nic:
Whats the deal with the noise about this Ajax midfielder Emanuelson attracting interest from Barca and Sevilla?
Biscuits starting over Toure again! SMH what a joke.
I lost all respect for Guardiola now.
Whats even more laughable is people entertaining thought of Biscuits being better then Toure.
so anyone care to try and defend this persistant playing of a clearly inferior midfielder in busquets. what's that his third or fourth stupid, careless, brain dead type of backward header that has lead to us conceeding!!!! anyone caring to defend this disgusting and stupid mistreatment of yaya, frankly ur just making youself sound stupid.
fucking sick of this. who is this barca? henry is back to doing nothing. passes are going to nobody. and we just miss so many chances. so aggravating.
was just about to vent some frustration b4 pedro actually looked up and picked out messi unlike the player he replaced....
Phhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was thinking to myself at about 70 minutes in this game, that this might be the game that I look back on at the end of the season and think Arghhhhhhh that's when we handed the League over to Real. However we scraped through.
This whole thing about Toure and Busquets is just preposterous.
There is no question who is the superior player. I don't know what is going on with Pep and Toure behind the scenes. Somebody suggested I the summer transfer window that Pep was Racist. I don't think is accurate, but if this proves to be true it will be a sad sad day for me. As a whole hearted Barca supporter and as a Humanist paramount. It would be beyond a disappointment to me to see one of my lifetime Heroes shamed.
I must reiterate that this is not my position of thought thus far. Just hope I'm never proved wrong. If Abidal and Keita go I fear something is a miss.
Beyond this, I'm ecstatic with the eventual win.
racist is 'funny', cracks me up
......cant be possible 
Good win on the road . Five points separate us from FCF .
I am going to weigh in on the Toure vs. Busquets debate but very briefly .
Toure is definitely a BETTER player than Busquets .
I understand the ACN argument BUT I think there is more to it than meets the eye between Guardiola and Toure .
IMO, it is obvious that , for some reason or another , Guardiola favors Busquets over Toure .
You can call me crazy but I would NOT be shocked if Toure was on his way out sooner rather than later . It would be a big loss to the club if that happens .
Back to the game . Why am I getting the impression that Henry is just getting through the motions ?
I'm sure Barça fans would prefer to see Henry at his best as he was last season and NOT his forgettable first season with the club .
Number ONE priority for the club is to sign a quality , world class LW asap .
We need one . We DON'T have one !!
personally, i think yaya is better than sergi,
it might just be me, but there is just something i don't like about him, i just don't know what it is
I would like to see xavi on the bench for this match, he has been given little rest lately and i don't want any fatigue or injury on him. it would also show if iniesta have what it takes to control the midfield
my prediction is 1-3
i really wont like us to draw this match, we should go for the win, i believe this is a critical time in the running for the league relative to madrid...
deportivo 1 - 2 barca
LINK
hope thats true
A bit surprised to see Chygry's name before Marquez but hopefully Chygry's going to be an unused sub in the match.
I agree a draw is the most probable outcome but having said that we shouldn't play for one at the outset, get complacent and drop all 3 points. We should go for the win and if we end up with a draw so be it.
@Nic:
Whats the deal with the noise about this Ajax midfielder Emanuelson attracting interest from Barca and Sevilla?
Biscuits starting over Toure again! SMH what a joke.
I lost all respect for Guardiola now.
Whats even more laughable is people entertaining thought of Biscuits being better then Toure.
so anyone care to try and defend this persistant playing of a clearly inferior midfielder in busquets. what's that his third or fourth stupid, careless, brain dead type of backward header that has lead to us conceeding!!!! anyone caring to defend this disgusting and stupid mistreatment of yaya, frankly ur just making youself sound stupid.
fucking sick of this. who is this barca? henry is back to doing nothing. passes are going to nobody. and we just miss so many chances. so aggravating.
was just about to vent some frustration b4 pedro actually looked up and picked out messi unlike the player he replaced....
Phhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was thinking to myself at about 70 minutes in this game, that this might be the game that I look back on at the end of the season and think Arghhhhhhh that's when we handed the League over to Real. However we scraped through.
This whole thing about Toure and Busquets is just preposterous.
There is no question who is the superior player. I don't know what is going on with Pep and Toure behind the scenes. Somebody suggested I the summer transfer window that Pep was Racist. I don't think is accurate, but if this proves to be true it will be a sad sad day for me. As a whole hearted Barca supporter and as a Humanist paramount. It would be beyond a disappointment to me to see one of my lifetime Heroes shamed.
I must reiterate that this is not my position of thought thus far. Just hope I'm never proved wrong. If Abidal and Keita go I fear something is a miss.
Beyond this, I'm ecstatic with the eventual win.
racist is 'funny', cracks me up
......cant be possible 
Good win on the road . Five points separate us from FCF .
I am going to weigh in on the Toure vs. Busquets debate but very briefly .
Toure is definitely a BETTER player than Busquets .
I understand the ACN argument BUT I think there is more to it than meets the eye between Guardiola and Toure .
IMO, it is obvious that , for some reason or another , Guardiola favors Busquets over Toure .
You can call me crazy but I would NOT be shocked if Toure was on his way out sooner rather than later . It would be a big loss to the club if that happens .
Back to the game . Why am I getting the impression that Henry is just getting through the motions ?
I'm sure Barça fans would prefer to see Henry at his best as he was last season and NOT his forgettable first season with the club .
Number ONE priority for the club is to sign a quality , world class LW asap .
We need one . We DON'T have one !!