Barcelona will be looking to make it seven La Liga wins in a row when they resume their domestic campaign away to a struggling Levante side on Sunday night.
The Catalan outfit are currently second in the table, 12 points behind leaders Real Madrid, while Levante occupy 19th position, six points from the safety of 17th spot with eight games left.
Match preview
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Levante are currently playing in their fifth straight season at this level of football, while they have only dropped out of the top flight for one campaign since 2010, so it would be a surprise if the team were relegated this term.
The Frogs are currently battling for their lives in the bottom three, sitting 19th, level on points with 20th-placed Alaves and six points behind 17th-placed Cadiz on the same number of matches (30).
Levante will enter this weekend's game off the back of a huge 2-0 victory over Villarreal, with Jose Luis Morales scoring a brace in the contest at Estadio Ciudad de Valencia.
Alessio Lisci's side still have a lot of work to do to escape the relegation zone, though, and they have some touch matches before the end of the season, facing Sevilla, Real Sociedad and Real Madrid in the coming weeks.
Levante have the third-worst home record in La Liga this season, meanwhile, picking up just 16 points from their 15 matches in front of their own fans, but they held Barcelona to a 3-3 draw in the corresponding match between the two sides last term.
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Barcelona, meanwhile, will enter the match off the back of a 1-1 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final on Thursday evening, with Ferran Torres on the scoresheet in the 66th minute after Ansgar Knauff had made the breakthrough.
The Catalan outfit will fancy their chances of finishing the job at Camp Nou next week, while they have won each of their last six in La Liga, including successes over Real Madrid and Sevilla in their last two.
Barcelona are actually unbeaten in Spain's top flight since the start of December, and the excellent run of form has seen them rise into second spot in the table, level on points (57) with third-placed Atletico Madrid and fourth-placed Sevilla, with a game in hand on both.
Xavi's side are still 12 points behind league leaders Real Madrid, though, and it is very difficult to imagine Los Blancos dropping that many points between now and the end of the campaign, so the runners-up spot is the realistic target for the club this term.
Blaugrana beat Levante 3-0 in the reverse match between the two sides back in September, while they have the second-best away record in La Liga this term. That said, the 26-time Spanish champions have dropped points in nine of their 15 league matches on their travels in 2021-22.
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Team News
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Levante have a lengthy injury list at the moment, with Shkodran Mustafi, Martin Caceres, Roberto Soldado, Dani Gomez, Oscar Duarte, Jorge de Frutos and Carlos Clerc all on the sidelines.
Caceres's injury, which occurred during the win over Villarreal, will open the door for Ruben Vezo to feature in the middle of a back three, but the rest of the side could be unchanged.
Indeed, Morales netted a brace against the Yellow Submarine and should again be joined by Roger Marti in a front two, while Nemanja Radoja, Pepelu and Gonzalo Melero are expected to feature in central midfield.
As for Barcelona, Memphis Depay, Ansu Fati, Sergino Dest and Sergi Roberto will again be unavailable for selection through injury.
Meanwhile, Gerard Pique picked up a groin problem against Frankfurt and is set to miss out, meaning that Dani Alves could return to the team at right-back, with Ronald Araujo moving across to the middle.
Frenkie de Jong is also expected to replace Gavi in the middle of the park, while Ousmane Dembele is likely to be given the nod over Adama Traore as part of a front three.
Xavi will have one eye on next week's second leg with Frankfurt but is expected to resist the temptation to shuffle his pack, so the likes of Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Ferran Torres and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang should again be in the starting side.
Levante possible starting lineup:
Cardenas; Miramon, Rober, Postigo, Vezo, Franquesa; Melero, Pepelu, Radoja; Morales, Marti
Barcelona possible starting lineup:
Ter Stegen; Alves, Araujo, E Garcia, Alba; Pedri, Busquets, F de Jong; Dembele, Aubameyang, Ferran
We say: Levante 0-2 Barcelona
Barcelona are on a roll at the moment in La Liga, and we are finding it difficult to back Levante to stop them on Sunday night. The Catalan outfit have been so impressive domestically in recent weeks and should have too much quality for their relegation-threatened opponents in this match.
Top tip
Matt Law
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Barcelona win with a probability of 62.88%. A draw had a probability of 20% and a win for Levante had a probability of 17.09%.
The most likely scoreline for a Barcelona win was 1-2 with a probability of 9.92%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (9.75%) and 0-1 (9.14%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (9.3%), while for a Levante win it was 2-1 (4.73%). The actual scoreline of 2-3 was predicted with a 3.6% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Barcelona would win this match.
