Things are rolling along nicely at FC Barcelona. The team has buried its bleak results of October in the distant past and is currently on a run of six straight wins in La Liga, and also got their Champions League campaign back on track on Tuesday with a 2-1 defeat of Eintracht Frankfurt. Meanwhile, things have not been going quite so well at Real Madrid, whose commanding lead in La Liga is now a thing of the past, with Hansi Flick and his men now sitting four points clear at the top of the table.

Not that things have been easy. Extraordinarily, in their last four games Barça have won despite conceding the first goal, the first time that has ever happened in club history.

Now it's time to do it all again, hopefully saving fans the nerves by scoring first this time, as Osasuna come to Spotify Camp Nou for a 6.30pm CET start. The side from Pamplona haven't been having the best of seasons, but they are never a team to be taken lightly. 

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Head to head

Last season, for example, Barça were soundly beaten 4-2 at El Sadar, although they comfortably won the return at the Estadi Olimpic, 4-0 with goals from Ferran Torres, Dani Olmo and Robert Lewandowski.

And although Osasuna have been on the wrong end of three drubbings by seven goals or more when visiting Barcelona in the last decade and a half, it isn't so long since they emerged victorious from this fixture, 2-1 in 2020.

Osasuna struggling

Osasuna's season started irregularly and then got worse. They were on a run of six games without a win until last Monday, when they finally collected three much-needed points from a 2-0 win at home to Levante. That's put three points between them and the relegation zone, while they have also successfully negotiated the opening rounds of the Copa del Rey and can start planning for a midweek trip to Huesca once this game is over. 

Coached by Italy's Alessio Lisci, the team may not be getting the right results, but they are nevertheless a compact, solid outfit with clear ideas. They're especially strong at the back, having conceded just 18 goals this league season, which is actually two fewer than Barça have leaked.

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Instead, it's in terms of goals at the other end that these two teams differ. Osasuna have only found the net 14 times so far compared to Barça's massive haul of 47, including three or more in every one of their last six league outings.

The man of the moment at Barça is Ferran Torres, who is enjoying some of the finest moments of his career. Following his hat-trick in the 5-3 win at Betis, he now has 11 to his name, with only Kylian Mbappé boasting more. As for Osasuna, their main man in attack is Croatian veteran Ante Budimir, the club's all-time highest scorer and who has added four to that tally this season.

Team news

Gavi, Dani Olmo and Ronald Araujo remain unavailable for this one, and while Marc Andre ter Stegen has regained full fitness, Hansi Flick revealed in his pre-game press conference that for the time being at least, Joan Garcia will continue defending the Barça goal. Another goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczęsny, is ruled out with a stomach bug. 

The opposition, meanwhile, and other than the long-term absence of the injured Iker Benito, are coming to Catalonia with a full-strength squad

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