La Liga Hangover: Barcelona Injury Crisis and Questions over Celta, Villarreal

Welcome to La Liga Hangover, a weekly column running throughout the season in which we take a look at the key stories and talking points from Spanish football's top flight's most recent weekend of action. With a focus on the biggest teams, such as Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and a worthwhile nod toward the rest, we take a look at how the league is shaping up each week and what to look out for going forward.

And Then There Were 14...

Injuries to Dani Alves, Claudio Bravo and Rafinha at the start of this season were far from ideal for Barcelona, but results were still going well for them, and they would have happily swapped three or four injured starting players to keep one man fit and firing: Lionel Messi.

Saturday, then, was the realisation of their worst fears—and the answered prayers of everyone else in La Liga—as Messi took an injury early on at Camp Nou. 

"

Messi has a tear in the internal collateral ligament of his left knee. He will be out for around 7-8 weeks pic.twitter.com/TLor97gmou

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) September 26, 2015"

A strongest Barcelona team full of fit senior players, not B-teamers or those recently graduated, will now have to include either Dani Alves or Sergi Roberto as the right-sided forward with the other behind in defence or else Ivan Rakitic or Andres Iniesta will need to move into the forward line, though both have played there before.

In turn, Sergi or Javier Mascherano would make up the numbers in the centre of the park. However, it's very much a case of moving around players to less natural positions, now, as manager Luis Enrique attempts to rotate and keep his remaining troops fit.

Barca's 24-man squad now contains six players who are injured or unavailable, two who are essentially B-teamers making up the numbers in attack, one who is a third-choice goalkeeper and one who is called Douglas and is therefore, by common consent, largely irrelevant.

And then there were 14.

VI-Images/Getty Images

El Clasico on November 22 will be Messi's target to return, but even then he won't be fully fit or sharp. Barcelona's front line is significantly depleted by his absence. The decision to let Pedro Rodriguez leave for Chelsea looks ever more costly for Enrique and his team—but it's not bad news for everyone.

Sandro Ramirez and Munir El Haddadi will presumably now get more chances to fill in—the latter replaced Messi against Las Palmas before Sandro replaced Munir himself later on—and add to their Nicklas Bendtner-esque combined return of five goals in 1,439 minutes in all competitions, per Transfermarkt.

In addition, Messi might be amazing, but his record from the penalty spot is more comparable to memories of Martin Palermo than Matt Le Tissier. With him out of the way, Barcelona might actually score one or two more now.

"

Neymar misses the penalty! Still 2-0.

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) September 26, 2015"

Oh.

Jornada 6 Results

Valencia 1-0 Granada

Barcelona 2-1 Las Palmas

Real Madrid 0-0 Malaga

Sevilla 3-2 Rayo Vallecano

Villarreal 1-0 Atletico Madrid

Eibar 1-1 Celta Vigo

Sporting Gijon 1-2 Real Betis

Deportivo La Coruna 3-0 Espanyol

Getafe 3-0 Levante

Real Sociedad 0-0 Athletic Bilbao

Super Start or Top-4 Candidates?

It's probably time to talk about Celta Vigo and Villarreal and address a few questions about them.

JOSE JORDAN/Getty Images

The Yellow Submarine currently top La Liga, with a draw at Real Betis on the opening day (when they finished with 10 men and conceded an 87th-minute equaliser) being the only fixture they have not won so far. Celta are in fourth, undefeated (Real Madrid are the third and the only other team without a loss this term) and recently beat Barcelona 4-1, though they drew 1-1 at Eibar on Saturday.

Both teams have a few things in common: They play possession football (in different ways), they had to rebuild important parts of the team this summer after several sales and they both showed last season they have great ability throughout the team.

In some ways, they are the typical sort of sides that represent the real La Liga versus Premier League opinion battle: excellent in possession, have players who will go on to do extremely well elsewhere, are capable of threatening the top sides but without the squad depth to do it all season long.

Celta last year were in the top six and had only lost one game from the first 10 by the start of November, but a win at Barcelona was an unexpected cliff edge from which they fell off with immediate and drastic effect. No wins in 10 Liga games followed, and they went hours and hours without even scoring a goal. Woodwork, offsides, luck and poor finishing all played a part, but confidence was almost irreparably damaged and all the ground they had gained in La Liga was lost by the time they rediscovered a scoring touch.

Ultimately, they did well to recover and finish eighth, but the signs were there in the first half of the season that this is a quality side, and this year's attack is actually better with Iago Aspas being a regular starter. Yes, really.

ANDER GILLENEA/Getty Images

Villarreal were different. They were a credible top-five threat. Just off the pace of the top-four challenge, a dual cup run in the second half of the season cost them dearly. Manager Marcelino opted to rotate and rest for La Liga to aim for silverware in the Copa del Rey and Europa League—and exits to Barcelona and Sevilla respectively meant the chance of glory in all three competitions was gone.

They finished sixth but again showed good enough football—and this year have reasonable depth—to suggest even better was possible.

With Sevilla having an appalling start and Valencia also stuttering, there is certainly one Champions League place up for grabs if either of these two continue their fine run into the winter months.

Goal of the Weekend

Bebe has his moments, doesn't he?

"

Bebe. (Vine by @ThePuntersPage) https://t.co/4qK1b8a3jw

— RT Deportivo (@notasportsRT) September 27, 2015"

Runner-up Edition

"

Ruben Castro, 2-1 BET vs SPO https://t.co/vob4uhCm02

— Karl Matchett (@karlmatchett) September 28, 2015"

"

Emi, getafe 2-0 vs levante https://t.co/aT6gWHhoUC

— Karl Matchett (@karlmatchett) September 28, 2015"

Points of Authority

• Carlos Kameni has been predictable this season in goal for Malaga: He makes astonishing saves, has great reflexes, catches very little and often saves the ball by knocking it back out into the middle of his six-yard box or penalty area. Barcelona took advantage of that with Thomas Vermaelen's winner; Sevilla on the opening day and Real Madrid on Saturday did not. Kameni also has a habit of messing up the simple things—Marcos Angeleri saved him this time out.
• Eibar are seventh, having lost just once so far, but nobody will be getting carried away. This time last year, they were ninth and were still in the top half by the winter break before ending the season in the bottom three.
• The legend of Joaquin took another step toward immortality with Real Betis as he scored his first goal since his return. He helped his team to a win over fellow newly promoted side Sporting Gijon to push Betis into the top half.
• Atletico Madrid spent big money on their attack this summer, but Luciano Vietto is still struggling for form and sharpness. Yannick Ferreira Carrasco might be a better look to get a run of minutes off the bench, while Angel Correa looks far better all round as a game-changer. Atleti are the only top-six team not to have double figures in goals scored at this point.
• Alvaro Vazquez's late introduction for Getafe saw him score twice in the last nine minutes and set up a third goal in between his own strikes in a 3-0 win against Levante. An exaggerated, but spectacular, definition of "impact sub."

Tactical Notes

• Real Madrid's 4-3-3 worked perfectly against Athletic Bilbao on September 23 but almost stunted and held back their offensive threat against Malaga on Saturday. Without a regular No. 10 behind Recio and Fernando Tissone in Malaga's midfield line, the double-pivot midfield was able to constantly force Luka Modric and Isco backward to play in less dangerous areas and not link up inside the box with the front three.
• Rafael Benitez did make changes, to personnel and formation, but there's not much he can do if a player simply can't find the target—WhoScored.com noted Cristiano Ronaldo alone as having 14 attempts, two more than Malaga as a team, but only two of Ronaldo's efforts were on target.
• Villarreal versus Atletico did indeed see 4-4-2 versus 4-4-2, and it was intriguing to see Bruno and Manu Trigueros of the home team manage play far better than Tiago and Gabi. They were smarter with their ball use, quick to close down high upfield and much more comfortable taking a high position as a duo than their Atletico counterparts. Naturally, Villarreal sat back in the second half, but defensively both proved equally adept. Gabi was subbed at half-time, Saul Niguez showed great work in both halves of the pitch for Atletico from a central role thereafter.
• Unai Emery's use of Michael Krohn-Dehli at Sevilla is so far frustrating and odd. A substitute for most of the season so far, he started the game against Rayo Vallecano from the left side. Earlier in his career, the Dane did play from wide, but last season at Celta Vigo he dominated play and constructed attacks from the centre of the pitch. Either play Krohn-Dehli there or use Yevhen Konoplyanka wide.

Good Week, Bad Week

The Good

Hey, Sevilla: good job! La Liga's bottom club finally clicked into gear for the new season with a 3-2 home win over Rayo—though it took throwing away a two-goal lead, then having their opponents go down to 10 men and needing a late winner to do so. The mystery surrounding Konoplyanka's absence from the starting XI continued, but the Ukrainian came off the bench to net the final goal.

CRISTINA QUICLER/Getty Images

Depending on your point of view, Leo Baptistao was good for scoring his second goal of the season for Villarreal, bad for doing it against his parent club, Atletico Madrid, good for actually netting the winner or bad for being largely poor aside from that impact. He wasn't involved much despite his team being on top, and he was subbed at half-time. Still, he earned the points.

Deportivo La Coruna won with conviction, confidence and good, structured play against Espanyol. The 3-0 win took them up to sixth place with only one loss from their six games so far. There's a long way to go, but they look a far stronger side than the likes of Levante or Rayo Vallecano this season.

The Bad

The Basque derby. What could have been an intriguing, if not necessarily entirely free-flowing spectacle instead played out as a war of attrition. Both teams were negative and more concerned with winning free-kicks and berating the officials than actually playing football. A point helps neither at this point, though at least they avoided more negative headlines for a defeat.

Granada's recent run of games hasn't been kind, but they have still fallen to the bottom and are the first team this season to lose four on the bounce. Worryingly, they have also only scored once in that time; their defence is weak, so the attack needs to be on point this term. Of late, it certainly hasn't been.

MALAGA GOAL WATCH: Six games played, zero goals scored.

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