This Saturdays fixture between Barcelona and Valencia had originally been billed as the latest tactical battle between managers Ernesto Valverde and Marcelino García Toral following their duel in Mays Copa del Rey final in which Valencia emerged the victors.
Just three days before the game though we heard that Marcelino had been relieved of his duties in charge of the Valencian side. He has been replaced in the role by Albert Celades, who will only be able to take a few training sessions with the squad before deciding on his starting lineup and formation for Saturdays game.
On the one hand, this is clearly a massive set-back in Valencias pre-match preparation, but on the other, it presents an opportunity for Valencias players to prove themselves to their new manager and allows Celades to catch Ernesto Valverdes men off guard. As this will be the former Spain under-21s managers first game in charge, no one can be sure of how he will approach it tactically.
Nevertheless, in this tactical analysis preview we will attempt to paint a picture of how we can expect Barcelona to approach the game, as well as taking a look at how Celades might look to use the tools at his disposal to try to come away with a result against the champions.
What weve seen from Barcelona so far
Its fair to say that the beginning of the 2019/20 season has not gone at all to plan for Barcelona. After a last-minute 1-0 defeat to Athletic in the opening weekend, a 5-2 victory over Betis saw Barça get back into their groove. In the last round of fixtures before the international break though they let their 2-1 lead slip away to Osasuna, coming away with a 2-2 draw.
The opening weeks of the season have presented Valverde with various headaches in terms of selection and tactics. The absence of Lionel Messi has meant that the team have had to work a little bit harder to unlock opposition defences and find openings.
The difficulty of finding a solution to Messis absence has been even further hampered by injuries to Luís Suárez and Ousmane Dembélé. This has seen the likes of Carles Pérez, Ansu Fati and Rafinha line up either side of Antoine Griezmann, who has been played in a central role.
Naturally, Real Betis and Osasuna fancied their chances of stopping Barcelona by protecting the middle of the pitch, forcing the Catalans to create from wider areas. This has meant that Barcelona have had to rely on the young wide players combining together well with the full-backs to create chances, as Griezmann has been starved of space in the middle of the park.
In this Saturdays game against Valencia Suárez has been strongly tipped to return to the starting line-up, though Messi and Dembélé remain out. The Uruguayan should return to the central number nine role, which should see Griezmann pushed out to the left, which is the set-up we saw against Athletic on the opening day.
In that fixture, Athletic were particularly aggressive in denying Barcelona space in the wide areas. In the first picture below we see how Athletics left-back steps out to close down Dembélé even before he receives the ball from Piqué.
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