Barcelona will be without Carlos Puyol and Sergio Busquets for the top-of-the-table clash with Celtic on October 23.
Puyol suffered a dislocated elbow going for a header in the Benfica penalty box during last night’s 2-0 win in Lisbon with Busquets being red carded in the closing minutes after clashing with Maxi Pereira.
With Gerard Piqué missing with a sprained ankle the Catalan side have major defemnsive worries ahead of Saturday’s clash with Real Madrid and the visit of unbeaten Celtic.
Goals from Alexis Sanchez and Cesc Fàbregas gave the visitors full points but it was a win achieved at a price.
“That took a lot of effort but despite that we took three very important points here in Lisbon,” Barca coach Tito Vilanova admitted. “We are very happy with the result, we haven’t managed to win at the home of Benfica recently despite having played here with some great teams.
“Carles Puyol has now suffered a couple of injuries this season that we might say weren’t exactly normal, a broken cheekbone and now a [dislocated] elbow. We’ll have to wait and see how long he’s going to be out for but he’ll be an important loss for us.
“We are always having problems with central defenders. It has forced us to convert some players in terms of position.”
Vilanova added: “In the first half they waited to counterattack and with their back line playing high up the pitch it allowed us to look for opportunities to get in behind them. “Of course scoring an early goal always helps but this wasn’t an easy game for us at all. Alexis Sánchez is continuing to show he is a player who wants to grow. As we saw with Cesc Fàbregas earlier in the season, now is the time for Alexis to push on.”
CLICK HERE for Spartak Moscow gallery
Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook
Bring it!!! HH 1NL
I think Barcelona have the overall strength in depth to cope with such injuries. The squad they have is incredible, although they will miss Pique v Real Madrid especially.
We have nothing to lose in the Camp Nou, so why not take the game to them, press them high up the park and force mistakes from defenders who normally enjoy lots of time on the ball.
I DONT THINK WE WILL GET A BETTER CHANCE TO STEAL SOMETHING IN THE CAMP NOU THAN THIS NXT GAME, THEY DEFINITELY HAV ISSUES DEFENSIVELY, SO HOOPER AND MIKU AND ATTACK FROM THE OFF, OOR MIDFIELD SHOULD BE CAPABLE OV BREAKING THERE USUAL STYLE OV PLAY, AND WITH A WEE BIT OV LUK WHO KNOWS, JUST HOPE LENNY STOPS TINKERING WITH PLAYERS POSITIONS, HAIL HAIL, GOD BLESS IE CELTIC+
i think its inevitable that we will concede goals in these next two games. whatever happens, happens, its just an honour to be in this competition again, and hopefully we can force a draw from at least one of these to keep us with a chance of qualifying!
We are in a good place at the moment a would take a point from the two games against barca we’ve done great winning in russia that sets us up nicely in the group hopefully we can get 7-8 points in the group and that should do for second place.HAIL HAIL
A big thank you to Aiden Mcgeady for having a stinker a true bhoy who like most fans could’nt play against HIS team well done wee man still a bhoy at heart
We can beat Barcelona!
They have no defense! – but then most of the time they don’t need one! We should play our most skillful players like Forrest and McCourt and surround the (disputed maybe) World’s best player by far and brain, heart and soul of Barça – Xavi Hernández with 3 players.
Stop him and you stop Barça!
Let’s enjoy it! Come on the Hoops!
Personally I would rather play their full team we should fear no team.