Luis Enrique might be short in midfield at the start of the new season after midfield maestro Andres Iniesta ahs been ruled out for the first two weeks of the upcoming campaign. Iniesta came off in the first half of last night’s Spanish Super Cup game against Sevilla.
The Spaniard was caught by a late challenge from N’zonzi and in real time it looked like a case of ligament damage. But after inspection by the medical team that is not the case and it is only a minor thigh strain.
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But the captain will still miss a couple of weeks because of the injury and it might pose a major problem for Luis Enrique. Iniesta is now 32 years of age but is till one of the most important players for Barca in that midfield.
Arda Turan was brought in last season as a like for like swap in to lessen the burden on the World Cup winner but Turan has not bee able to bring that same kind of fluidity to Barca’s attack, the way the Spanish playmaker is able to.
Denis Suarez has also be re-signed by the Catalans and is seen as the successor to Iniesta once he retires. He had a good game yesterday in the first leg of the SuperCopa as Barcelona defeated Jorge Sampaoli’s team 2-0.
Barcelona also have concerns over Jeremy Mathieu who also suffered an injury in last night's game. The Frenchman pulled his hamstring and will be out for around 3 weeks. Lucas Digne will probably deputise in his place.
Now Sevilla have to travel to the Nou Camp for the return leg on Wednesday night but they have a huge task ahead of them. Sevilla employed a high press against Barca to stop them from playing and it worked really well in the first half.
They managed to get behind the Barca defence on many an occasion,but some brilliant last ditch defending from Mascherano and Gerard Pique denied them a goal. IN the second half Barcelona were lot more compact.
Barca opened the scoring through Luis Suarez which forced Sevilla to push as many forward as possible. leaving huge gaps at back allowing Barcelona to counter frequently. One of those counter-attacks led to Barcelona’s second goal with Munir getting on the scoresheet.
Barca will begin their title defence against Real Betis on the opening day of the season at home.
