Barcelona began the defence of their La Liga title with a thumping 6-2 victory over Real Betis last week and the Catalans could not have wished for a better start to their campaign.
It is already looking like Barcelona are favourites to claim the title but Luis Enrique will surely not allow his players to look too far ahead and the clash against Athletic Bilbao away from home on Sunday will surely be a huge test for the defending champions.
Here is the strongest possible Barcelona lineup for the clash against Athletic Bilbao –
Goalkeeper
Barcelona recently sanctioned the sale of first choice Claudio Bravo to Manchester City and moved quickly to replace the Chilean international with Jasper Cillessen.
Cillessen is widely believed to be the second choice at Barcelona this season but with Marc-Andre ter Stegen out injured, it looks like the Dutch international will be handed his debut this weekend.
Defence
Samuel Umtiti and Gerard Pique look the first choice central back combination for Enrique this term and as Javier Mascherano is still out injured, the aforementioned duo is likely to start on Sunday as well.
Jordi Alba will be starting on the left while Sergi Roberto will probably continue in an unfamiliar right-back position ahead of Aleix Vidal. The likes of Lucas Digne and Vidal will be hopeful of starting though and they should feature if Enrique decides to change things around.
Midfield
Andres Iniesta is still struggling with injury and this means that the trio of Denis Suarez, Sergio Busquets and Ivan Rakitic look set to continue at the middle of the park this weekend.
Sergi Samper, Wilfrid Kaptoum and Douglas Pereira made the bench against Real Betis and they will be hopeful of earning an appearance as well.
Attack
Neymar is still unavailable following his participation in the Olympics but even without the Brazilian superstar, the duo of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez were in rampant form last weekend after grabbing respective braces.
Arda Turan, who is starting in the place of Neymar, also got into the act by finding the back of the net and the trio will surely be looking to wreak havoc on the Bilbao backline once again this weekend.
(4-3-3)
Via – Lineup Builder
