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Madrid, Oct 16 (AFP): Ronald Koeman said on Saturday Barcelona will have a team to win La Liga once their injured players have recovered.<\/p>\n
Barca sit ninth in the table ahead of a crunch week that includes league games against Valencia on Sunday and Real Madrid next weekend, with a Champions League match at home to Dynamo Kiev in between.<\/p>\n
Koeman suggested Sergio Aguero could be included in the squad to face Valencia, with the former Manchester City striker yet to make his debut for Barca due to a calf injury.<\/p>\n
Ousmane Dembele, Pedri, Martin Braithwaite and Ronald Araujo are also out while Ansu Fati has only just returned from a long-term knee problem.<\/p>\n
“Little by little we are getting the squad we want,” said Koeman in a press conference. “We have had bad luck with injuries but when they recover we will have a team to fight for the league title.”<\/p>\n
Aguero played around 25 minutes and scored in a friendly against Cornella on Wednesday after returning to full training earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old joined Barcelona on a free transfer in June with the intention of playing with his Argentinian teammate Lionel Messi, only for Messi to move to Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n
“He has improved quite a lot recently,” said Koeman. “He lacks some match rhythm and physical sharpness but he will get this back by playing. It’s possible he will be in the squad tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
Fati also played in the friendly as he builds up his fitness after 11 months on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
“We will decide tomorrow,” Koeman said on the chances of Fati playing against Valencia. “Every day he is better but he was out for a long time and it will take longer than weeks to recover that sharpness.<\/p>\n
“We will play three games in the next few (eight) days. He will not be able to play all of them, that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n
Dembele is also training again but is further behind after three months out following knee surgery. The Frenchman is not expected to feature this weekend.<\/p>\n
Koeman’s future looked bleak after just one win in six matches but club president Joan Laporta said before the international break the Dutchman would continue in charge.<\/p>\n
“I’m not worried,” said Koeman. “In a club as big as Barca there are always things like this. I’m used to it, it’s not the first time. Last season there was already talk about the coach.<\/p>\n
“The president has supported me and explained things very well but there is no doubt a coach always depends on results.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madrid, Oct 16 (AFP): Ronald Koeman said on Saturday Barcelona will have a team to win La Liga once their injured players have recovered. Barca sit ninth in the table ahead of a crunch week that includes league games against Valencia on Sunday and Real Madrid next weekend, with a Champions League match at home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-174279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}