Barcelona vs Sevilla Pre-Match preview's

Team look to bounce back against Seville

Camp Nou, 22.00: Barça host Seville in another key game – this time in the league 

Éric Abidal given medical okay and could be Barça’s best winter signing

Barça are in the middle of a series of key games and following Wednesday’s painful defeat in Europe, they host Seville tonight on what threatens to be a freezing cold evening at the Camp Nou and although they have a comfortable looking twelve point lead in La Liga built on an immaculate first half to the season, Barça will want to get back to winning ways for a morale boost ahead of this week’s double header against Real Madrid.

The first good news for Barça came with the announcement on Thursday that Eric Abidal had been given the medical all clear to play, which means that Jordi Roura will only be missing Adriano for the game, with David Villa, who missed the trip to San Siro, again available.

Seville bouncing back under Emery

For their part, Seville come into the game in the middle of a good run, with manager Unai Emery – who brought his previous side Spartak Moscow to the Camp Nou earlier this season - having lost just once since he took over at the Sanchez Pijuan in January and his team now sitting in tenth spot, though still without an away win since September. The ex-Valencia boss will be without Palop, Cicinho and Spahic for the game.

It’s also a big week for Seville, who as well as scrabbling up the league table, are looking for Spanish Cup success with a semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, after going down 2-1 in the first leg.

Since Unai Emery took over at Seville, his team have taken 10 from a possible 15 points 

Seville are without a win on the road for the last five months 

Unai Emery took over at Seville on January 14th and in the month and a half since then, the team have taken 10 out of a possible 15 points, with just one defeat – the 4-1 beating at the Bernabeu – as well as ensuring qualification for the Spanish Cup semi-final, where they are 2-1 down to Atletico Madrid after the first leg at the Vicente Calderon. It’s a record that is in stark contrast to Michel’s final period at the club, when they took just four points from six games, a run that saw him sacked after less than a year in the job.

Emery yet to beat Barça

Emery’s record against Barça with Almeria, Valencia and Spartak Moscow is pretty undistinguished for such a top coach, with nine defeats and five draws over the last five seasons.

Contrasting tactics

Those results hide a reality which is slightly different though, as on a number of occasions, Emery’s teams have caused Barça plenty of problems. At Valencia, his tactics of playing down the flanks with players such as Jordi Alba, Mathieu and Pablo Hernández took him close to victory on more than one occasion and they were consistently one of the toughest visitors to the Camp Nou when Barça played under Guardiola.

The last two games Emery has led a team against Barça were with Spartak, where he used a contrasting approach, with less wing play and a more conservative approach to the games. That nearly worked in the game at the Camp Nou in the Champions League group stage, when Spartak went down 3-2, but the Russians proved less of a threat at home, when they lost 0-3.

22 players in session ahead of Seville game

The squad trained this Friday afternoon, with only the injured Adriano, who worked apart from the rest of the players, not available for tomorrow’s game 

The players will be back at the Camp Nou for a final training session ahead of the Seville clash at 12.30 on Saturday 

The squad continued preparations for Saturday night’s game against Seville on Friday evening when Jordi Roura led a training session with 22 players, including Eric Abidal, who was given the medical all clear on Thursday.

Adriano, who is recovering from a hamstring injury he picked up in the first half of the game against Granada and missed the trip to Milan in midweek, trained apart from the rest of the rest of the squad