La Liga giants Barcelona will be without star striker Lionel Messi for two months, and fans and pundits alike have been wondering how the Blaugrana will cope in the Argentine’s absence.
The Catalan giants will be without their talisman for eight weeks, though he could be fit in time for El Clasico on November 21, after La Pulga injured his knee in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Las Palmas after only 9 minutes of play.
In several previous occasions, Barcelona have found it difficult winning games without the four-time Ballon d’Or winner, with manager Luis Enrique admitting that the player’s latest fitness issue will take a huge toll on their style of play.
"It is always sad when a player is injured. In the case of Messi it is not necessary for me to say what we all know: that he is very important to the team," said the Asturian coach.
"Without Messi we lose a lot of things from our style of play so we will now have to rearrange collectively but I have no doubt that we will overcome this.”
However, Barcelona boast an array of world-class attacking talents, not including Messi, with the likes of Luis Suarez and Neymar at Enrique’s disposal. As a result, the manager remains adamant that his side can cope in Leo’s absence.
Messi is the team’s highest scorer of 2015, with 41 goals, but subtract M form MSN and the Blaugrana still have 55 goals between Neymar and Suarez, a fairly impressive figure.
Messi (41), Neymar (28) and Suarez (27) have now together scored 96 goals for Barcelona in the year 2015 #fcblive [via #pedritonumeros]
— barcastuff (@barcastuff) September 28, 2015
"This team will cope fine and will deal with this. It is capable of doing so well because it has personality and courage. It can be seen as a test and a stimulus."
A Messi-less Barcelona’s first fixture is a home clash with Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.
