Hansi Flick's red-hot Barcelona prepares to host RCD Espanyol for the first Catalan derby of the season.
Barcelona can open up a nine point gap atop La Liga following its dominant win against Real Madrid in last weekend El Clásico. Los Blancos won't play this weekend because of the severe flooding that has tragically impacted different areas across Spain this past week.
Coming off fabulous performances against two top European sides, the Blaugranas have a chance to hand its Catalan rivals an eighth loss in La Liga that could see Los Periquitos fall to the relegation zone. Barcelona are undefeated against Espanyol in its last 26 league meetings, an ominous precedent for Los Periquitos that are currently 20 points back of the league leaders.
Given that on paper this seems like a much simpler fixture compared to the previous week's opponents, Flick might be tempted to shuffle his starting XI and give players that recently returned from injury the chance to feature from the start.
