Barcelona have been struggling with injury issues throughout the season. The likes of Andreas Christensen, Ronald Araujo, and Jules Kounde missed key games in the Champions League group stages, for example, which ended up in Barça being relegated to the Europa League.
Even now, Ousmane Dembele has be picked up a muscle injury and will miss nearly a month worths of football, while Sergio Busquets is also ruled out due to injury.
The next few weeks present Barcelona with the toughest set of fixtures for the season, including a two-legged tie against Manchester United in the Europa League knockout stage.
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https://barcauniversal.com/manchester-united-trio-expected-to-miss-barcelona-clash-due-to-injury-confirms-ten-hag/This is unfortunate news for the Barcelona team, who have a big fixture this week. This should give Manchester United a better chance of winning the first leg, as well as another advantage if most of Barcelona's key players do not return in time for the second leg. It is now up to Ten Hag to manage the game effectively in order for them to win this week. If the game formation strategy is poor, I believe Manchester United will lose the game because Barcelona must have a backup plan in place by now.
It's always bad for the fans if not all of the best players are healthy and can play. But to me this looks as if it is quite even between the two teams now. Dembele is a significant loss to Barcelona has he has shown some great games thus far this season.
I am sure we can still be looking forward to a nice clash between the two teams. Still enough strong players available to make the games worthwhile watching. While it is highly unlikely that Barcelona could miss the direct qualification for the Champions League, the situation for Manchester is a bit different. They will have to fight in the Premier League until the very last day I think. Winning the Europa League could also be a backdoor ticket into the Champions League.