Back to La Liga tomorrow with a visit to San Mames to face Athletic Bilbao (kick off 10pm). Pep Guardiola will have to make do without the injured Zlatan Ibrahimovic and flu victims Eric Abidal and Toure Yaya, so Johnathan dos Santos has been called up to make up the numbers. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that nobody else goes down with the flu as we already have other players who are not at 100% after various knocks and niggles picked up in the last couple of weeks.

Athletic will probably be without Fernando Llorente who is unlikely to recover in time from a hip injury, though coach Joaquin Caparrós will not name his 18-man squad until tomorrow lunchtime. Athletic are currently 8th in the table on 16 points and of five home games they have won three...

Admittedly it is pretty difficult to get excited about this one. Having won the first leg 0-2 thanks to goals from Pedro Rodriguez if Barça fail to go through to the last sixteen it will have to go down as one of the biggest surprises in the history of the Copa. With some big World Cup qualifiers coming up we will be without Eric Abidal and Thierry Henry as France face Ireland while Chygrynskiy has been called up for Ukraine's games against Greece. Toure Yaya is also on World Cup duty with Ivory Coast even though they have already qualified. Pep Guardiola is also without the services of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Seydou Keita who both picked up injuries towards the end of the match with Mallorca. Ibra has a pulled muscle which will need...

It's back to La Liga and back to Camp Nou tomorrow where we play hosts to fifth placed Mallorca (kick off 8pm). After two disappointing draws away from home we will certainly be hoping to win this one. For the first time this season Pep Guardiola has all 20 first team players (bar Gabi Milito) available for the game. Guardiola said today that "in many aspects we are a better team this season". While I would agree that Ibrahimovic offers us new options and Seydou Keita has been a much improved player, unfortunately there are other parts of the team that are not performing so well. Let's hope that tomorrow the team show us what they are capable of by knocking in...

Barça have Dani Alves and Thierry Henry back for tomorrow night's crucial Champions League Group F game against Russian champions Rubin Kazan. However, for once we may be more preoccupied with the weather news than the team news because it is very cold in Kazan at this time of year. Just checking on the internet now and as I write (6pm in Spain) it is -6ºC (21ºF) in Kazan with a wind chill factor which makes it feel like -11ºC (13ºF). Tomorrow it is likely to be similar, but we can hope it is a wee bit warmer in Rubin's Central Stadium than it is at the airport which is where the weather reports come from, and hopefully the stadium will also offer a bit of protection...

It's back to La Liga tomorrow night with a trip to Pamplona to take on Osasuna (kick off 8pm). Thierry Henry is fit again and has been included in a 19-man squad for the trip, the only first team players missing are the injured Gabi Milito and Dani Alves. With an important Champions League game at Rubin Kazan on Wednesday, Pep Guardiola may be tempted to rest a couple of players. I have a feeling that Henry won't start but will come on as a sub in the second half to get him warmed up for the game in Russia.

Osasuna's coach José Antonio Camacho has all his players available except for Esparzaand Delporte. Carlos Aranda has been declared fit and will probably return to partner Walter Pandiani in attack. Osasuna are currently 10th in the table with 11...

Before talking about the Copa del Rey a quick mention of the awards some of our players collected this week. First Victor Valdés picked up his Zamora trophy from Marca for being the goalkeeper who conceded fewest goals in the 2008/09 season. Valdés only conceded 31 goals in the 35 games he played, this is the second time he has one the Zamora, the first time being in the 2004/05 season. Valdés may have his critics but there are not that many goalkeepers who can boast an average of under one goal conceded per game. Valdés has a career record of 233 league appearances with only 204 goals conceded (0.8755 goals a game); just to compare, the "great" Iker...

Some of us may give a wry smile when we hear the word crisis after losing to Rubin Kazan on Tuesday, after all it was our first defeat of the season, we are top of the league and we have won five trophies so far this year! However, failure to beat Zaragoza tomorrow evening will undoubtedly cause some more hectic ringing of alarm bells.

Pep Guardiola will have to make do without Dani Alves so we will probably see captain Carles Puyol fill in at right back. The good news is that Puyol is reported to being close to signing a new contract which will keep him at the club until 2013. Thierry Henry is still out but Chygrynskiy is fit again and he may be straight back in the team where he will partner Gerard Piqué in...

We are back to the Champions League tomorrow night with the visit to Camp Nou of Russian champions Rubin Kazan. Barça will be hoping to forget the disappointing performance against Valencia with a win that will be a big step towards classification for the last 16. Zlatan Ibrahimovic should return to the starting XI after missing the game in Mestalla but we will still be without Thierry Henry who is recovering from a thigh strain.

There's not a lot I can tell you about Rubin Kazan. They won the Russian league last season and are top again this round with a one point advantage over Spartak Moscow with just five games to go. Their best player is reported to be the Argentinian Alejandro Dominguez who has scored both the Russian...

Thierry Henry may not have been in the best moment of form before getting injured playing for France on Wednesday, but it is a great shame that he will miss tomorrow's game at Mestalla because since joining Barça he has scored seven goals in games against Valencia. Last season he scored a hat-trick in the 4-0 league win at Camp Nou, and then in Valencia he came off the bench to score a late equalizer in a hard fought 2-2 draw (Click here for this blog's report on that game).

Our other international players should all be ok to play but there is a good chance that Pep Guardiola will once again leave Leo Messi on the bench as he has done on other...

Barça take on Almeria tomorrow evening (kick off 8pm) hoping to go top of the league before the two week break for international games. Thierry Henry and Bojan Krkic are both fit again but will probably both start the game on the bench. This means Andres Iniesta, who was today named in the Spanish squad, will probably start again on the left side of the attack. The only players on our injured list now are Gabi Milito and Dmytro Chygrynskiy.

Almeria who are coached by one of Camp Nou's favourite enemies, Hugo Sanchez, have had an inconsistant start to the season, with one win, one defeat and three draws so far. This year they...