Lamine Yamal will seek to erase his last bad memory against Leganés

FC Barcelona visits Leganés this Saturday (9:00 PM CEST), a tricky opponent for Hansi Flick's team. In the first leg, the 'cucumber growers' surprised Barça in Montjuïc (0-1) in a match that also left Lamine Yamal KO for three weeks due to a sprain in his right ankle. In that sense, the Mataró native will seek to leave behind his bad memory against the Madrid team, who are going through a very delicate moment in the standings (they are in 18th place, in the relegation zone).

In the match of matchday 17, Lamine suffered a hard tackle from Yvan Neyou in the 17th minute that injured his ankle. Despite the pain in the area, the winger remained on the field until the 75th minute, but this cost him to spend the end of the year with a splint, missing the match of matchday 18 against Atlético (1-2) and the debut in the Copa del Rey against Barbastro (0-4). Yamal, however, recovered in time to play in the Spanish Super Cup, where he was key to obtaining the title (he scored against Athletic and Real Madrid).

Hansi Flick does not rule out resting several starters in Butarque

In that sense, the possibility of giving the '19' rest on Saturday remains open. Although the youth player has no muscular problems and his departure against Borussia Dortmund at the end was anecdotal, it would not be unreasonable to think of a substitution in Butarque, although the 17-year-old player has not stayed on the bench since matchday 15 against Las Palmas (he played the second half in the 1-2 defeat).

"As a coach, I don't confirm anything. Let's see. We have to take it into account, we have to make changes from time to time, we need fresh legs, there is a match between 3-4 days... and that is how we manage these situations," Flick explained in the press conference prior to the match in Butarque. Lamine has already exceeded the barrier of 3,500 minutes in the 24-25 season (3,534') and has only missed 5 of the 48 matches played by Barça, both due to injuries to his right ankle.

In his last 5 league matches, Lamine scored against Atlético (2-4) and assisted one of the goals against Girona (4-1). At the moment, his production in the tournament is 6 goals and 11 assists (leader of the competition) in 27 matchdays in which he was only a substitute against Osasuna and Las Palmas, both matches ended in Barça defeats. Hence, for matchday 31, the coaching staff has to think very carefully about whether or not to give their star a rest.