Newly signed Barcelona forward David Villa will be suspended one match for the red card he received last weekend against Athletic Bilbao. The World Cup winning forward was sent off late in the 3-1 away victory when he jabbed at Athletic defender Carlos Gurpegi striking the footballer briefly in the face with his fist. Villa overreacted to the hard tackle made by the defender and now as a punishment the player will be out against last year’s fifth place squad of Mallorca.
The good news for the former treble winners is that Villa will likely be replaced in the starting lineup by the league’s best player. Lionel Messi did come into their Champions League match earlier today and the Argentine forward played substitute minutes in the match although he failed to score during his 30 minutes of time on the pitch. The arrival of Messi back into the lineup from that terrible ankle injury should be considered a bit of a shock considering the severity of the tackle two weeks back.
Messi cheated the chance of receiving a serious injury and now the forward could be back in the starting eleven after missing less then two weeks of action. But as I have expressed before I think Barcelona should be very cautious allowing Messi to return to action so soon after receiving such a near season-ending blow. With Valencia on the schedule in two weekends and another Champions League fixture immediately following that critical match, Messi might be best off coming in for the final 30 minutes of this weekends match just to have him at around full fitness for those two key fixtures coming up in the middle of October.
photo credit: prettyfriendship