Barcelona will be looking to make it seven La Liga wins in a row when they resume their domestic campaign away to a struggling Levante side on Sunday night.
The Catalan outfit are currently second in the table, 12 points behind leaders Real Madrid, while Levante occupy 19th position, six points from the safety of 17th spot with eight games left.
Levante are currently playing in their fifth straight season at this level of football, while they have only dropped out of the top flight for one campaign since 2010, so it would be a surprise if the team were relegated this term.
The Frogs are currently battling for their lives in the bottom three, sitting 19th, level on points with 20th-placed Alaves and six points behind 17th-placed Cadiz on the same number of matches (30).
Levante will enter this weekend’s game off the back of a huge 2-0 victory over Villarreal, with Jose Luis Morales scoring a brace in the contest at Estadio Ciudad de Valencia.
Alessio Lisci’s side still have a lot of work to do to escape the relegation zone, though, and they have some touch matches before the end of the season, facing Sevilla, Real Sociedad and Real Madrid in the coming weeks.
Levante have the third-worst home record in La Liga this season, meanwhile, picking up just 16 points from their 15 matches in front of their own fans, but they held Barcelona to a 3-3 draw in the corresponding match between the two sides last term.
Barcelona, meanwhile, will enter the match off the back of a 1-1 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final on Thursday evening, with Ferran Torres on the scoresheet in the 66th minute after Ansgar Knauff had made the breakthrough.
The Catalan outfit will fancy their chances of finishing the job at Camp Nou next week, while they have won each of their last six in La Liga, including successes over Real Madrid and Sevilla in their last two.
Barcelona are actually unbeaten in Spain’s top flight since the start of December, and the excellent run of form has seen them rise into second spot in the table, level on points (57) with third-placed Atletico Madrid and fourth-placed Sevilla, with a game in hand on both.
Xavi’s side are still 12 points behind league leaders Real Madrid, though, and it is very difficult to imagine Los Blancos dropping that many points between now and the end of the campaign, so the runners-up spot is the realistic target for the club this term.
Blaugrana beat Levante 3-0 in the reverse match between the two sides back in September, while they have the second-best away record in La Liga this term. That said, the 26-time Spanish champions have dropped points in nine of their 15 league matches on their travels in 2021-22.
Levante La Liga form:
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Barcelona La Liga form:
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Barcelona form (all competitions):
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We say: Levante 0-2 Barcelona
Barcelona are on a roll at the moment in La Liga, and we are finding it difficult to back Levante to stop them on Sunday night. The Catalan outfit have been so impressive domestically in recent weeks and should have too much quality for their relegation-threatened opponents in this match.