Barcelona are heading into tonight’s trip to Las Palmas with a number of absentees in defence which will have manager Luis Enrique scratching his head over how to configure a back line.
Gerard Pique has been ruled out due to a virus, joining injured duo Jeremy Mathieu and Aleix Vidal and suspended Sergi Roberto on the sidelines.
Those losses leave Enrique especially struggling for a right-back, with usual emergency stand-in Javier Mascherano likely to be needed in the middle alongside Samuel Umtiti.
Enrique could field a back three of Mascherano and Umtiti alongside either Jordi Alba or Lucas Digne, or another option would be to select Mascherano at right-back with Brazilian youngster Marlon Santos coming into the middle for his full debut.
The Barca boss claimed to be confident that he will be able to answer the conundrum against a Las Palmas team who can pose a significant attacking threat on their day, having scored three or more goals on six occasions at home this season.
“We’ve got a lot of players missing, but we have a squad which is prepared for this sort of situation and we will continue to be competitive,” Enrique said. “Marlon is definitely an option.”
📷✈️ Barça are on their way to Las Palmas ahead of tomorrow's game. #LasPalmasFCB pic.twitter.com/r8KgZhUOVi
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 13, 2017
Even if Barca win their two remaining games, they still need leaders Real Madrid to drop at least three points in order to retain the title, but Enrique is holding out hope that an eventful season in La Liga still has another twist to come.
“Everyone at the club is in high spirits about exploiting whatever chances we have for the remainder of the season,” he said.
“We will fight for the title until the final day and let’s see what happens. Over the course of history we’ve seen some strange results in the last few games, and anything can happen.”
