PREVIEW: FC Barcelona v Girona FC

Following the disappointment of a 4-0 defeat at home to Real Madrid that brought an end to FC Barcelona's Copa del Rey campaign in painful fashion, attention returns to La Liga on Monday (9m CEST), where the situation is a very different one indeed.

Barça went into the weekend with an already huge 12-point lead on Real Madrid. But on Saturday, the all-whites crashed to 3-2 defeat at home to Villarreal. So if Barça can collect the full three points from the local derby with Girona, the gap would be extended to 15. The obvious cliché is that absolutely anything can happen in football and nothing is certain until the mathematics say the title is won. But there is no question that Barça are in an extraordinarily strong position. It would take a crash of unprecedented proportions for them not to go an win a 27th Liga title, and the first since 2019.

Catalan derby

This game is the perfect opportunity to bring back some positive vibes after the major blow on Wednesday night. And it should be a fun one to watch against a team that plays some of the prettiest football in the competition, and which has scored the fourth highest number of goals in the league, surpassed only by the top three.

After a rather poor start to their first campaign back in the top flight, things picked up mid-season and Girona are now eleventh. But the bottom half of the Liga table is a very tight battle, and there are just seven points separating them from the drop. That's a fairly decent gap, but manager Míchel knows that there's still a lot of work to be done before they can breathe easily.

An important step in that direction was made last weekend in another Catalan derby, where Girona saw off Espanyol to the tune of a 2-1 win, putting an end to a minor slump in which the red-and-whites had only collected one point out of a possible nine.

To date, as manager of Rayo Vallecano, SD Huesca and of Girona in the 1-0 defeat at Montilivi earlier this season, Michel has lost every game he has played against Barça. And Girona have never beaten Barça in Liga. The best they have managed was a 2-2 draw in 2018.

Team news

It was after just a few minutes of the meeting in Girona in January that Ousmane Dembélé had to withdraw injured, and the Frenchman hasn't played since. His replacement that day, and the man who went on to score the only goal, Pedri, is also side-lined, as are defender Andreas Cristensen and midfielder Frenkie de Jong.

Xavi Hernández has again drawn on the reserves and youth players to complete his 22-man squad, with Marc Casadó, Angel Alarcón, Estanis Pedrola and Aleix Garrido all included.

Xavi says

"This game was already important before what happened between Madrid and Villarreal. This is an opportunity that we have to take. We need to turn the page after what happened the other day and go on to win the league, which is the fairest competition."

"We are missing important players, but that's not an excuse. We need to stop making mistakes. We are competing well, but we're not mature enough when we face the really big teams. We need to take our chances when they come and we didn't do that against Madrid on Wednesday."

"But we have a lot of young players and it won't be for another two or three years before we can stop saying that this team is still being built. And yet we've already won one trophy are on good track to win a second. If we win the league, it will have been a very good season. La Liga is under-valued. People don't appreciate how difficult it is to win it."