PREVIEW: FC Barcelona v RCD Mallorca

There are just five games left in the Liga season, and although the Liga title challenge is over, there is still plenty of work for FC Barcelona to do in the coming weeks.

A top four finish means a place in the Champions League next season, but if the blaugrana can hold onto their current second place in the table, they’ll also be going to the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia early next year.

So it is more urgent than ever for the team to put an end to their peculiarly negative run of bad results at Camp Nou. After losing at home to Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League and then doing likewise against Cádiz and Rayo Vallecano in LaLiga, the team has lost three consecutive home fixtures for the first time ever in a single season. There was one bright moment in between when they won 1-0 at Real Sociedad.

The visitors for yet another Sunday 9.00pm CEST kick-off are Mallorca, a team that started the season well but ended up in the relegation zone. A couple of recent wins against Atlético Madrid and Alavés have pulled them back out again, but they are still far from safe.

Their form away from the Balearic Islands has been especially dire. Since a shock win at Atlético Madrid in December, Mallorca have lost eight in a row on the road. Let’s hope it becomes nine on Sunday (GET TICKETS HERE)

Last meeting

At San Moix in January, Barça beat Mallorca 1-0 thanks to a 44th minute goal from Luuk de Jong:

Happening elsewhere

With such a massive points difference, it was only a matter of time before Real Madrid confirmed the Liga title and that happened on Saturday afternoon as they defeated Espanyol 4-0 to spark celebrations for the white half of the Spanish capital.

But Barça's chances of capturing second place have received two welcome boosts this weekend. On Friday night, Sevilla, with whom they were tied on 63 points, could only draw 1-1 at home to fellow Andalusians Cádiz.

And on Saturday, fourth placed Atlético Madrid were toppled 2-0 by Athletic Club, meaning Barça could go five points clear of them with a win of their own.

The main outside threat to the current top four comes from Copa del Rey champions Real Betis, who travel to Getafe on Monday night.

Xavi says

“I don’t know Javier Aguirre but he always gets the best out of his teams. He has changed their system and is making the most out of set pieces. Mallorca will be a hard nut to crack.”

"We have worked hard in training this week and some players have returned. But we are in no position to brag. We are going to have to work like beasts to qualify for the Champions League. If we can shoot 28 times and not score once there’s something clearly going wrong. Rayo and Cádiz are teams we should be beating but we didn’t take our chances and they just had just three and did.”

“Ansu Fati is in the squad. We’ve been monitoring him very closely. He’s feeling good and I’m very pleased to say that he will come on at some stage. But we must remember that football is a team game. It’s not about individuals and everybody is going to need to pull their weight.”

"I don’t want to talk about future signings. They won’t score tomorrow and won’t stop the opposition from scoring either. Let’s worry about what we have, we can talk about the other things when the time comes.”

Team news

As Xavi explained on Sunday, there are a number of complications right now. "Pedri is out for three or four weeks" he said. "We’ll have to see how Piqué is feeling. With Sergi Roberto it wasn’t a relapse, it’s a muscle thing. Nico fractured his toe in a clash with Ansu. It’s a shame but that’s football. And now we have two with Covid [Mingueza and Braithwaite]. Ousmane has tonsillitis. But we have to win this and show that what’s happened lately was just a bad patch.”

Right back Sergiño Dest is also missing with a muscle injury. However, in addition to the aforesaid Ansu Fati, there was also good news regarding Samuel Umititi, who is back to full fitness and was named in the squad announced on Sunday morning.

Did you know?

Barça have scored in their last 25 league games against Mallorca. Only against Levante (32 games) do they have a longer record.

Five of Barça’s last seven goals at Camp Nou have come from Ousmane Dembélé assists, and all to different players:  Luuk de Jong, Memphis Depay, Ferran Torres, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Pedri.

Mallorca coach Javier Aguirre has never beaten Barça in twelve attempts, and all seven of his games at Camp Nou have ended in defeat.