Barcelona has been a little inconsistent in this season, considering the fact that they are the defending champions of this La Liga competition. They should have been performing better. They should also put all their resources into actually winning the La Liga title because frankly, they do not have any chance of winning the Champions League.
Barcelona have a little scare in the Injury of Yamine Lamal which will make him unfit to play for his country Spain. It is a hip flexor injury, so it may or may not take long to completely heal. He has been important for the Barcelona coach this season, It can be terrible not to have him available for a few games including their champions league fixture.
I have heard that he is not going to play for his country. They have decided that he is unfit to participate in Spain in the upcoming matches. I think that is actually a good decision. There is no reason for him to play if he is unfit. And he is still very young. At only 16 years of age, there is no reason to put any pressure on him whatsoever. His getting better properly from an injury is only going to make him longer and have a better career in the long run.
Real Madrid is leading the La Liga table right now and they are definitely showing a dominant performance. I did think that Barcelona is going to be in the second position and consistently be at a one or two point difference with Real Madrid. But Barcelona seems to not have that same level of performance. Barcelona has been a little inconsistent in this season, considering the fact that they are the defending champions of this La Liga competition. They should have been performing better. They should also put all their resources into actually winning the La Liga title because frankly, they do not have any chance of winning the Champions League.
Seriously, I don't think that Barcelona are in the great form that fans are expecting from them, and with the way they are always struggling to win games nowadays, I really noticed that it will be hard for Barcelona to top the table for a long time this season unless they put in more effort. In some matches that Barcelona have played this season, they are always the first to concede goals, and later they will struggle to win, which shows that Barcelona's form is not that strong. The way Real Madrid is going now, I don't think they will drop from first place in the table because they are playing strongly every day. Barcelona is not in that great form, but nobody can say they can't win the Champions League because this is what people were saying when Chelsea won their last Champions League in 2021 because of their poor start. Let us not easily conclude because Barcelona is doing well in the Champions League currently.
Honestly, there are no other teams in the league to actually compete head-to-head with Real Madrid. Even though Atletico Madrid has been showing good performances recently, I just do not trust them to be consistent enough. Barcelona needed to win every easy match that they had. But they were not able to win those matches. Actually, Barcelona is not performing well, to be honest. When you need to defend the league title, you really need to be consistent. And you need to be more consistent when you know that you do not have too much power in your squad.
Regards
Duke