No big surprise that we have six players in the final 30 for this season's Ballon d'Or. Leo Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Toure Yaya, Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have all been shortlisted for the award by France Football and there is also a place for ex-Blaugrana Samuel Eto'o. My only problem with the list is that none of our defenders have been nominated as Alves, Piqué and Puyol could all have made the list, but I suppose this just goes to show that it is the forwards and midfielders who take the glory in football.

There is the possibility that we could end up with the top three spots as Messi, Xavi and Iniesta will all receive a lot of votes but I imagine Cristiano Ronaldo will...

The international break has taken its toll on Barça and the worst affected has been Thierry Henry who will be out for approximately ten days after picking up a thigh injury in his right leg in France's game against Austria. This means Henry will miss tomorrow's game at Valencia and the Champions League game at home to Rubin Kazan on Tuesday while he will be doubtful for next Sunday's match with Zaragoza. Better news for Xavi, Iniesta and Ibrahimovic who should all be ok for tomorrow's game despite suffering various knocks in their international games.

Tests today have confirmed that our Ukranian defender Dmytro Chygrynskiy will be out of action for three weeks with a strained ligament in the left knee. Due to the international break coming up Chygrynskiy who is cup tied for the Champions League will miss only the home game with Almeria and possibly the trip to Valencia on the weekend of 17/18th October. Our other injured player from yesterday's game, Thierry Henry has a thigh strain and is doubtful for Tuesday's game with Dinamo Kiev but could be back in time for Saturday's game with Almeria.

There are still eight days to go before the Champions League Final with Manchester United but the signs are positive that two of our most important players, Thierry Henry and Andres Iniesta, will be fit in time to play from the beginning. According to a report in today's El Sport both players are proceeding well with their recoveries and the medical services have indicated to Pep Guardiola that they will both be ready in time. This is indeed excellent news, we will just have to work out...

Despite the disappointment of the last two drawn games it has still been a pretty good month for Barça. We remained unbeaten in April, we are still in poll position to win La Liga this season and we are just one game away from reaching the Champions League final. We played some excellent football this month and few will forget the two outstanding 4-0 victories over Bayern Munich and Sevilla. Andres Iniesta wins the Fcbnews player of the month award for the third consecutive month and it is not surprising that some fans now consider him to be even better than Leo Messi. The sixty minutes he played against Sevilla will be remembered by those fortunate enough to see it as one of the best individual performances seen at Camp Nou in recent years, but...

The two goals from Bojan Krkic in Sunday's 0-2 victory at Almeria took Barça's total of league goals this season to 78 from 27 games, which is two goals more than we managed in the 38 matches of the 2007/08 league season, and we still have eleven fixtures remaining! Added to the league goals we have scored 28 in 10 Champions League games and 13 more in eight matches in this season's Copa del Rey. Just to put this into context, that is a total of 119 goals in 45 matches (2.64 goals a game); in 2005/06 when we won La Liga and the Champions League we scored a total of 117 goals in 55 matches (2.13 goals a game), scoring 80 in...

December has been another great month for Barça with wins over Valencia, Madrid and Villarreal, only the defeat at home to Shakhtar spoilt it but then again that game didn't really count for anything. Having now checked the points totted up by each player you can imagine my surprise to find that the December player of the month is none other than Thierry Henry. Regular readers will know I have not been Henry's biggest fan since his arrival at Camp Nou but his improvement this season has been notable, he started this month with a hat-trick against Valencia and yesterday he grabbed the vital winner at Villarreal and was for many people the man of the match. In an interview last week...

There was a lot of talk last season about Barça's fantastic four. However, Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry failed to perform while Samuel Eto'o and Leo Messi missed a lot of games through injury and hardly ever coincided in the team. This season things have been quite different: with Ronaldinho in Italy the remaining three have been hitting the net with an incredible consistency, so far this season between them the three have scored no fewer than thirty goals in La Liga and ten in the Champions League. Samuel Eto'o has bagged 14 in the league and 3 in Europe with an average of a goal every 79 minutes played. Messi has 9 league goals and 5 in the Champions League and an average of a goal every 91 minutes, while Henry now has 7 in the league and 2 in Europe, his average works...

Thierry Henry will miss tonight's Copa del Rey game in Benidorm after passing a bad night with stomach problems. Henry reported to Camp Nou this morning and after a medical examination it was decided he should rest for 24 hours. Carles Puyol has been called up to the squad in Henry's place.

There were six Barça players on international duty yesterday and the star of the night was Thierry Henry who scored twice in France's 3-1 win in a friendly against Tunisia. Tunisia took the lead after 30 minutes but France hit back with goals from Henry in minutes 40 and 49. Karim Benzema scored France's third just before the hour. Henry played 83 minutes before being substituted by Malouda. Eric Abidal played the full 90 minutes in central defence.

Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Bojan Krkic were all in action for Spain's under-21 team who beat Switzerland 3-1 after extra time to qualify for the under-21s European Championship. Piqué and Bojan played the entire...