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Leganes and Barcelona meet on Saturday at the Estadio Municipal de Butarque, as the La Liga table toppers hope to extend their lead at the top of the table. While that will be the case with Barcelona, the bottom placed Leganes hope to start their revival, with the hopes of getting out of the bottom three.
Barcelona romped home to a convincing 4-1 victory against Celta Vigo, with the help of a Lionel Messi hat-trick. However, the win acted as a double-edged sword, with attention being taken away from the under-fire Ernesto Valverde.
He will be hoping that his attacking outlets in Messi, Suarez and Griezmann, who have all had great outings with their respective international sides, convert their national form into club form. With Real Madrid slowly picking up form as well, his men cannot afford to have any slip ups.
The bottom placed Leganes now have just one win in fourteen matches in all competition, which does not bode well for them especially with the clash against Barcelona up next. To pile on that, the home side has recorded just a single win this campaign and that too against newly-promoted Mallorca. They've scored a league low total of just seven goals this season and have also conceded the second highest number of goals this season.
Although one would like to be optimistic and hopeful for Leganes, but Barcelona have the odds in their favour this weekend. A win for the visitors is placed at 1.4 on BigPesa. On the other hand, a draw is placed at odds of 4.1, while a win for the home side is valued at 6.0.
Team News:
Barcelona:
Nelson Semedo and Jordi Alba are ruled out of this clash, with Ivan Rakitic being a major doubt this weekend. Sergi Roberto is suspended after he received his fifth caution of the season which would mean that they'll be without both their fullbacks for this particular game.
It'll also be intriguing to see who starts besides Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann in the front three. BigPesa suggests that there should be a couple of goals in this match, with odds of 3.75 in its favour.
Leganes:
Recio and Kevin Rodrigues are suspended for the Barcelona clash. Marc Navarro and Alexander Szymanowski remain absentees while Ruben Perez will be hopeful to be fit in time. The rest of the team will more or less be the same from their previous fixture.
BigPesa favours the 0-2 score-line, with a Barca win on the cards. The odds of 8.2 favour this score, though Leganes will have something to say about it.
Predicted Lineups
Barcelona: Marc-Andre ter Stegen; Dani Morer, Gerrard Pique, Clement Lenglet, Junior Firpo; Arthur, Sergio Busquets, Frenkie de Jong; Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann, Ousmane Dembele.
Leganes: Ivan Cuellar; Roberto Rosales, Unai Bustinza, Dimitris Siovas, Jonathan Silva; Roque Mesa, Christian Rivera, Oscar Rodriguez; Youssef En-Nesyri, Guido Carrillo, Martin Braithwaite.
