Torres out of Barca trip, Atletico future in doubt

Luis Enrique has confirmed that Neymar has overcome any injury concerns and will start for Barcelona in Saturday’s crunch clash with Atletico Madrid – and joked he would be “killed” if he left the Brazilian ace on the bench.

The club would therefore need to hope their appeal against the ban is successful or sign Torres on a permanent deal before Monday’s transfer deadline to secure his long-term future at the club.

Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are now tied for the lead, but the reigning champions have one game in hand.

If not a win, Diego Simeone’s men will at least be gunning for a draw in this high profile encounter and, given their talent and resilience, could come away with a point in this game.

“I see absolutely no reason why Neymar would want to leave Barcelona”, Mestre was quoted as saying by Marca after the attacker scored in his side’s 3-1 Copa del Rey quarter-final second-leg win over Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday.

“It is a blow to have been knocked out of the Cup as our aim is to battle for all the trophies and hopefully this will not affect us for the league game now with Barcelona”. The hosts have a crushing head to head record and have won the last five games against Atletico, so the Catalan fans are highly optimistic ahead of this game.

La Liga enforces a salary cap of £320.6m and Barcelona’s current wage bill for players and staff stands at £319.1m.

With the return of the best in the world Lionel Messi, Barca is looking stronger with its attacking trio Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar Jr.

“The arrival of Suarez has strengthened the whole system and the marvellous thing about those three is that there is no envy”.

“There is normally always jealousy and egos, but there it is the total opposite”.

“I rate the team as highly as ever”, he added.

“The people who don’t like football don’t like dribbling, but for me it’s fine”.