Spain’s all time top scorer has looked sharp in the limited appearances he has made so far this season.
The Club World Cup is largely an irrelevance for the winners of the Champions League, but it became very pertinent to Barcelona’s season last year when David Villa broke his tibia playing in a match against Al Sadd.
The striker ended up spending 8 months on the sidelines, missing the rest of Barcelona’s season and Spain’s successful defence of the European Championship.
Barcelona clearly missed Villa’s presence, their lack of a cutting edge was apparent when they failed to penetrate Chelsea’s defences in their Champions League semi-final loss.
his season they are understandably reluctant to throw Villa back into action, his injury affected his pre-season and any risk of another injury is a risk not worth taking. The signs are very positive though, in the limited time Villa has spent on the pitch, he has looked every bit as sharp as he was before the injury.
He has not completed 90 mins in the league yet, indeed he has only started one game, but he has found the net three times in his five total appearances. In fact the stats are even better than that, he has only spent 109 minutes on the pitch in the league, fired off only five shots, got four of those on target and put three in the net.
The most recent of these was a confident finish that gave Barcelona an unlikely win at Sevilla. Villa came on in the 79th minute and scored in the 93rd to seal a 3-2 win when Barcelona had been 2-0 down. His first goal this season came a mere 7 minutes after he had come onto the pitch. When he’s playing, he’s scoring.
The question now is how soon can he be reintegrated into the starting eleven for Barcelona. This weekend they face their great rivals Real Madrid in what is already the third Clasico of the season.
Barcelona lost after the two legs of the Super Cup, but this match is far more important. Real Madrid have stumbled into the league, picking up only ten points from their first six games, and they are already eight points behind Barca.
If Villa’s side can win Sunday’s match at the Camp Nou there would be people already dismissing Real Madrid’s title challenge as over. This may seem ridiculous, but that would mean Madrid had already dropped 11 points from seven games, they only dropped 14 in the whole of last season.
Barcelona and Spain both looked a little blunt at times last season, there was plenty of criticism of both team’s style but what was often forgotten was that they both missing Villa.
Strikers of his standard are bound to affect their teams when absent and with him now back and looking sharp, you can expect the already impressive attacks of both sides to improve immeasurably.
image: © adifansnet
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
