La Liga Midweek Matches Previews: September 22, 2010

Joe LazarSep 22, 2010

Barcelona vs Gijon

Barcelona will be missing Messi and in a big way, it isn’t often that a coach says that a player cannot be replaced even if he is still confident that his side will pick up 3 points on Tuesday. Messi was injured in Barcelona’s 2-1 win over Atletico on Sunday. There is the issue that the home team may be a little bit tired after having a rather intensive start to the season, after all their last match was only two days ago. Despite Messi having picked up a rather nasty ankle injury neither him nor his manager hold any ill feeling towards the culprit saying that it seemed like an accident.

Sporting have picked up four points which isn’t a bad start to the season by any means. Despite this, they just didn’t quite look themselves in their last away match and aren’t exactly known for how well they travel. They were trashed in their only away game so far in the season 4-0, by Atletico who Barca beat last weekend. Odds are that they aren’t going to be coming away from this match with any points as Barcelona can punish teams on the top of their game never mind one which will likely be playing poorly away from home.

Valencia vs Atletico Madrid

Valencia are having something of a brilliantly good start to the season. Probably nobody really thinks that they will hold the first place in the table for very long, but it is nice to see somebody up there who isn’t Barcelona or Real Madrid. Widely considered as the best of the rest in Spain, outside of the top two, the eternal title race underdogs are showing that they aren’t all bark. Valencia seem to be proving that their high profile outgoings aren’t the end of the world for them and despite having a bit of a club shake up, they have settled into a comfortable winning rhythm. At home it seems unlikely that this will be the start of them slipping up.

Atletico have not had the best run of teams to play against in the last few weeks. On Sunday they played Barcelona and on Tuesday they have to deal with an on form Valencia, not something that many clubs will relish. They are a good side and after having made some shrewd signings to tighten up their wobbly defence they do look like a decent team.