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#1 Barcelona's season threatening to unravel
The season started poorly enough for Barcelona, with just two wins picked up from their opening five LaLiga fixtures but the return to full fitness of captain Lionel Messi helped steady the ship and the Catalans ended last year on a high, topping both LaLiga and their Champions League group.
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However, things have once again gone south and recent disappointing results have seen them relinquish top spot in the league to Real Madrid as well as the termination of Ernesto Valverde's contract.
The latter was something that reportedly did not sit well with a number of players and unconfirmed reports suggest that two players (Lionel Messi and Ter Stegen) flared up in a confrontation on the training ground.
In the aftermath of Valverde's sack, the Barcelona players failed to have their customary pre-game huddle where one of the top players gives their final peptalk and all this pointed to signs of a divided dressing room.
Some ill-advised comments by Director of Football Eric Abidal during an interview this week saw Lionel Messi take to Instagram to address his former teammate and call him out in what was a major deviation from the normally taciturn Argentine international.
Added to this is the fact that Messi has a clause in his contract that could see him leave for free this summer and reports have started linking him with a shock move to Manchester City in the Premier League.
Furthermore, the club were rocked with the news of long-term injuries to Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele but their indecisiveness in the winter window means that they would end the season with Antoine Griezmann and Lionel Messi as the only established forwards in the first-team.
The general feeler from the Barcelona camp is that they are a house in disarray from boardroom to the training ground and it is no surprise that results on the field have been poor and they would do well to get their house in order to avoid ending the season in calamity.
