Mallorca are a strange team, they have to live with the fact that they're a "selling club", so every season, after they get some momentum going (like last season), they always risk derailing it due to selling key players. Such sales occurred before the start of this season, but with all credit to the team, they currently reside 5th in La Liga. As such, we should not expect this game to be easy at all.
That being said, a similar situation to tonight's game occurred against Real Zaragoza a couple of weeks ago ; Barça were backed into a corner by the press after a disappointing result against Rubin, and responded by thrashing Zaragoza 6-1. I don't expect a score-line quite as high against Mallorca, but I do expect a similar response.
For the first time in what seems like an age, we can actually field our best starting 11, too.
As such I'd expect Pep to line up:
-------------Valdes-------------
Alves--Puyol--Pique--Abidal
------------Toure----------------
-----Xavi---------Iniesta-------
-Henry---Zlatan------Messi---
That being said, Toure may be swapped for either Keita or Sergi Busquets (with the latter being more likely as he didn't play in the midweek). For a similar reason, you might see Maxwell on the left instead of Abidal. I'm equally as confident in both players, so this doesn't concern me too much. The big bonuses here are having Alves back to give us some width, and Henry back to do his usual, pulling defenders out of position etc. Indeed, tonight's game would be perfect for him to start his goal scoring account, so let's hope he finally gets off and running.
Score Prediction:
I'm going to go 4-2 Barça, with Messi, Zlatan, Henry and Iniesta getting on the score sheet. I hate to be pessimistic, but last time I was right : We'll concede at some point if Chyrgynsky or Marquez play for a prolonged period of time. (I hope they prove me wrong).
Until then,
Visca el Barça i Visca Catalunya!
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