God only know if there is any curse involved with
Barcelona's defensive Midfield position. Last season everyone with a little bit of footballing sense was complaining about the lack of a quality defensive midfielder. So
Barcelona went and acquired Yaya Toure and it looked like he was doing well in that position. Now the inevitable comes, Yaya has to leave for African Nations cup and its understandable as Nation comes before club. We were never that worried as we had edmillson coming back into the side. To go by his performance in last match he looked very good.
But when it comes to Barcelona's DM position, it looks like nothing can be taken for granted. Now its confirmed that Edmillson has indeed torn adductor muscle in his left thigh. How long he will be out is the only fact to be decided and the club doctors are taking their time on it. There is only one somewhat genuine option left for Rijkaard for that position - Rafael Marquez. We will see Iniesta donning that role in some matches, but cannot visualize him doing the same in crucial matches. The only positive that will come with this incident is that Puyol may get back his usual position.
Now coming to the Real Murcia match Xavi, Milito and Marquez may not be in the starting lineup as all of them are carrying knocks. I expect Rijkaard to rest Marquez as he has to don the role of DM in coming matches. With Barcelona’s lineup strength and quality Murcia match should be a cakewalk. Iniesta should perform the DM role in this match. Giovanni is expected to be in starting line up, but i will love seeing Bojan in the lineup too. This will be the perfect opponents for these two to display their skills. It does not look like Barcelona's dream of cutting down the Madrid lead will come true this weekend, as Madrid will be against struggling Levante. But that's no excuse for Barcelona not to put pressure on Madrid. You sometimes don't know from where the opening comes.