• Barcelona - Celta (4-1) .Messi does not stain the ball

Barcelona has reached the break of selections with the tongue out, but with some sense of relief. After beating Celta in the Camp Nou in another irregular match solved by three goals to Leo Messi's standing ball, the Barca managerial leadership reinforced his confidence in Ernesto Valverde . Something that the coach himself already knew since lunch held last Thursday with President Josep Maria Bartomeu, the same one who saved his neck in summer in front of a large sector of his board. However, the color of the equipment is still very pale. Among the constant tactical fluctuations of the coach in search of solutions, the poor group response in the game plan, and the disappointing performance of some of the capitostes, especially Griezmann, the league leadership and command also in Europe continue to know little. Even more when a pandemic of injuries is added to all of which nobody seems to find a remedy.

The last to fall has been Nelson Semedo. The Portuguese lane, one of Valverde's favorite solutions this season - he has participated in the 16 official matches of the course - and declared untransferable by the club last summer, suffered a break in the soleus of his left leg during the match against Celta , recurrent injury this course in the dressing room of Barcelona. He will be five weeks off, so his participation in the 18-D classic against Real Madrid is in question.

Problematic will be the preparation of the eleven Barca holder in the next game against Leganés given the sanction of Sergi Roberto. Moussa Wagué, the only healthy right-handed side left in the squad and has not yet played a single minute this season, should have his chance .

Problems also accumulate on the other side after Jordi Alba relapsed from his left biceps femoral lesion that had already taken him a month off . There is no other option there than that of Junior Firpo, who returned to the team against Celta and celebrated it on the same Saturday night, photographing himself with his family on the Camp Nou lawn.

This Barcelona of Valverde has not ceased to pile up troops in the infirmary since that first day of the preseason in which Leo Messi suffered a break in the soleus, an injury that he also relapsed and that, in total, left him without playing five games. Up to 11 of the 24 players of the first team of Barcelona - including the players with a record of the subsidiary, Ansu Fati and Carles Pérez - have been injured in these first three months, adding among them 16 physical mishaps .

Ter Stegen, Piqué, Lenglet, Busquets, De Jong, Rakitic, Aleñá, Arturo Vidal and Griezmann are the only ones who have escaped the plague. And three of them, by the way, have had a residual weight on the team, such as Wagué (zero minutes this course), Aleñá (45 minutes) or Rakitic (a single title and 255 minutes of play). The 37,000 kilometers of that last preseason in which Barcelona visited Japan and the United States provoked Piqué's complaints. Valverde, meanwhile, has recently defended the rest days he offers to his players.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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