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Upcoming Opponents: Villarreal

Team name: Villarreal Club de Fútbol

Recent form: W-L-D-L-D

One to watch: Marco Rubén

Competition: La Liga

Fixture date: 28th January 2012

Stadium: El Madrigal

After securing progression in the Copa del Rey, Barcelona next face Villarreal. El Submarino Amarillo are half way through a very disappointing season and are currently sitting at 17th in the La Liga table. They desperately need points but will be lucky to finish the weekend out of the drop zone.

Barcelona also desperately need points in order to reduce the five point deficit between them and Real Madrid. By the time the game kicks off, Madrid will already have played their game against Real Zaragoza and Pep Guardiola will be hoping the point gap remains at five.

Guardiola will be without David Villa, Ibrahim Affelay and Andrés Iniesta, who picked up a muscle tear in Wednesday's game. Leaving a first team spot for rising stars, Thiago and Cuenca.

Villarreal's main problem this season has been their leaky defence. Villarreal have conceded 28 goals this season but only scored 18 goals themselves. A goal record like that has caused them to lose eight games this season. A relegation battle is now the main concern for manager José Francisco Molina.

Barcelona's last league game against Málaga ended in 4-1 to the Catalans. Lionel Messi was unsurprisingly the man of the match. Causing mayhem in the Málaga defence, the best player in the world possibly could have scored five goals but instead settled for his fifth hat-trick of the season. Whilst Madrid and Barça are in a race for the La Liga title, Messi and Ronaldo are in the race for the Pichichi trophy. As it stands Ronaldo has the edge over Messi but thanks to Messi's weekend hat-trick, his lead has been cut to one.

Meanwhile Villarreal's main man, Giuseppe Rossi, has only scored three goals this season because of injury and for a striker of his class, he must be disappointed.  The American scored 32 goals last season but he will quickly have to find his scoring boots if he is to replicate that tally.

Villarreal's main source of goals this season has come from Argentinian, Marco Rubén. The 
25 year old has scored 6 goals in 15 appearances. But with a fully fit back four, Rubén will be lucky to get on the score sheet.

A Barcelona win seems likely but a large scoreline may be on the cards if Villarreal's defence continues to be as fragile as it has been so far this season.
 

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