Barcelona loses Puyol, Alves for Bilbao trip

Barcelona will be missing defenders Carles Puyol and Dani Alves for Sunday’s Spanish league game at Athletic Bilbao. The league leaders say Puyol won’t travel after picking up a knee injury while Alves is sidelined due to pain in his right leg.

Barcelona will be missing defenders Carles Puyol and Dani Alves for Sunday’s Spanish league game at Athletic Bilbao.

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The league leaders say Puyol won’t travel after picking up a knee injury while Alves is sidelined due to pain in his right leg.

Barcelona has defender Adriano returning from injury, while forward Lionel Messi and fullback Jordi Alba are still injured. Barcelona lost its first game of the season under new coach Gerardo Martino at Ajax on Tuesday.

And he is hoping the negative reaction to their display will ensure there will be no repeat performance in what appears to be their toughest match remaining between now and the winter break in three weeks’ time.

“What we need to do is show a different face, we need to change what we did in the first 45 minutes, no matter who the opponent is,” Martino said.

“I don’t want to speak about a process. Before we had won by four goals and I would sign up to losing one game in every 20.”

Barca will once again be without long-term absentees Lionel Messi, Victor Valdes and Jordi Alba, whilst Martino confirmed Dani Alves and Carles Puyol would also miss the trip to the Basque country.

Adriano and Alexis Sanchez do though return to Martino’s 18-man squad, whilst Sergio Busquets will start having been rested in midweek.