B-team players training with the first team ahead of this game: Jose Arnaiz, Aleñá, Cucurella, O. Busquets, Vitinho, Carles Pérez & Ortolá.
Players given rust until after Copa del Rei game: Ter Stegen, Umtiti, Busquets, Paulinho, Iniesta, Suarez & Messi.
Our opponent is not good enough to give the other B's chances. Before we give that, I think we should give the first team's players some minutes to prove themselves.
Paco, Gomes, D. Suarez, Digne and Deulofeu should definitely start.
Paco and Gomes are to leave, sooner or later. Digne's had minutes lately and showed he's good enough to rest Alba so his playing time shouldn't worry us.
On the other hand, I'm sure all of us would like to see how Arnaiz does with the first team. He might be replacing Dembele after all. Oriol Busquets could possibly rest Sergio every now and then, no other player we have could do that. Same goes with Messi and Alena. Alena tends to play the same role Messi does. I'd like to see them start at their nautral positions at witch we usually lack depth... think this is a great opportunity.
Get the feeling that the board wan to offload Rakitic and Gomes in January. Maybe, that's the reason why they are being forced into the line-up every chance! I hope we won't lose points one of these days due to this forced inclussion of this drab!!