Deportivo La Coruna vs. Barcelona: How Barca Should Line Up in La Liga Game

Barcelona continue their La Liga campaign at the Riazor Stadium and a date with Deportivo La Coruna.

It's a ground that the Catalans have fond recent memories of. Who can possibly forget the last time the Blaugrana were in town back in October 2012?

The 5-4 win for Barca was one of the games of that season and the locals would surely approve of another such spectacle, albeit with the scoreline reversed.

The three points will certainly be needed as the Galicians have endured an indifferent campaign to this point and are hovering dangerously above the relegation places at present.

Just three wins at home all season isn't anything to write home about, however it's a stat that's a little misleading as both Athletic Club and Valencia have been beaten at the Riazor.

Los Che were comprehensively tossed aside by three goals to nil, so Luis Enrique and co. might want to study the footage from that match before embarking on a journey to a ground where they might normally expect to pick up the three points.

"

@juanfran__11 @CuencaIsaac http://t.co/JSkj0XnnlK pic.twitter.com/KnKplYrQwc

— somosdepor.com (@SomosDepor) January 10, 2015"

Victor Fernandez will get his side up for the fight again and two players in particular, will have much to prove.

Ex-Barcelona youth stars Isaac Cuenca and Oriol Riera are trying to find their best form in that part of Spain and you would imagine that nothing would give them greater pleasure than to put one over on old colleagues.

The home side will certainly need to have their shooting boots on if they want to cause an upset. Per WhoScored.com, in the last 15 games, Depor have failed to score on nine occasions.

Of the six games when they did hit the back of the net, just one of them, Valencia, saw more than a solitary strike in the "goals-for" column.

Barca for their part will be looking to get back to some kind of normality after a quite awful start to the year.

If the Catalans have any aspirations of taking the La Liga title whatsoever, then these are the games which need to be won. And not only won comprehensively to send a message, but to positively massage the goals-for column.

Who knows how vital goal difference may be come the end of the campaign.

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

Luis Enrique's constant rotation policy is surely not good practice at this stage, but we can expect yet another turn of the carousel after the midweek match at Elche.

There is a school of thought that perhaps Lucho just does not know what his best starting XI is.

However, if Barca are to push on in all competitions at the business end, then the sheer amount of rotations should at least see every single squad player arriving to that point in the season as fresh as a daisy.

In any event, a grueling midweek Copa Del Rey tie forces his hand here.

Claudio Bravo will continue his own personal crusade to win a record-breaking Zamora Trophy and as long as his defense are up to scratch, he should have a quiet afternoon against a team that have scored just 14 goals all season.

Andres Kudacki/Associated Press

Martin Montoya may get one last chance to impress, and it'll be an interesting battle up against Cuenca, a player he knows well from Barca's youth setup.

Marc Bartra needs minutes and alongside Jeremy Mathieu will provide guile, aerial superiority and a physical presence when needed. Adriano Correia will complete the back four.

Strangely lacking confidence, this could be the perfect game for Ivan Rakitic to reassert his authority. Alongside Javier Mascherano and Andres Iniesta, the threesome will look to isolate Ivan Cavaleiro and Juan Dominguez as the home side look for the balls out to the flanks.

Up top, the front three would normally pick themselves but given the cup game, expect Pedro Rodriguez and Munir El-Haddadi to start in place of Neymar and Luis Suarez.

Lionel Messi plays. Lionel Messi always plays.

This is another potential banana skin certainly, but a win will at least allow Barca to keep a glimmer of hope of overturning the deficit to Real Madrid during the remainder of the season.