Barcelona will welcome Osasuna to the Nou Camp this Thursday in what is their round of 37 tie for the La Liga this season.
The hosts could see their La Liga title defence end this weekend if Real Madrid wins Villarreal. They however will be looking to pick up all three points here and hope that Villarreal will do them a favour at the capital. They head into the tie with three consecutive wins in the league.
Osasuna who are sitting in 11th place have enjoyed three wins from their last five games (D1, L1). With just two games to play, their goal for the season remains to finish as high up the table as possible and perhaps crack the top ten.
Team News
Antonio Griezmann joined Barcelona’s injury list that still has Ousmane Dembélé, Samuel Umtiti and Frenkie de Jong in it. The striker is set to miss the rest of the La Liga season with thigh injury.
Jagoba Arrasate has Ezequiel Avila, Robert Ibanez and Marc Cardona out with injuries as the trio are not expected until later this month or next month. Meanwhile, Unai Garcia and Ruben Garcia are injury doubts for this tie.
Head to head
Osasuna will look for a first win over Barca since 2012, with the last seven meetings since that time featuring five Barca wins. In that period, the Blaugrana scored more than five times in three games, and also keeping three clean sheets.
Betting Preview
Barcelona head into this tie unbeaten at home in the league this season (W16, D2) and remain the best home team in the division.
They have kept five clean sheets from their last six home games, scoring twelve times in that period. Overall, they have kept eight clean sheets at home this season.
Their last eight in the league have yielded seven wins with only Atletico Madrid, the only team that took points off them.
In recent home games, Barca have started slowly to have scored just two first half goals in their last five home games. Meanwhile, they have also completed just one HT/FT double in that period, winning by 2+ goals just once across those five fixtures.
Osasuna are on a run of two wins, a draw and two losses from their last away five matches played since the restart.
They enter this tie as outsiders having picked up ten points from the last 15 available compared to the 13 picked up by their opponents at home in five games.
Their task of posting a positive result here is made all the more complex judging by the fact that they have lost six of the last nine away games they have played with teams in the top-half of the table. In that period they recorded just a single win with two draws as well.
Meanwhile, their failure to score in recent times has coincided with their losing the match as three of their last losses in the league has seen them fail to score in the match.
Suggested Bets
Barca to win @ 1/6
Under 3.5 Goals @ 8/11
Both Teams to Score/No @ 3/4
