Sergio Busquets left the field before Messi in the second half after suffering an injury to his lower leg.
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Atletico momentarily switched off as a corner from the left was played short to Andres Iniesta and his cross was powered home by the late arriving Rakitic. “We now have to look for different solutions”.
Bauza criticized Barcelona’s assessment that the recovery time for Messi’s injury is three weeks and said he thinks Messi will be forced to miss World Cup qualifiers at Peru on October 6 and home against Paraguay five days later.
With Messi we are stronger, but we will continue being strong, “Barcelona coach Luis Enrique was also quoted as saying by The Guardian”.
The Catalans are now sitting third in the table, three points behind leaders Real Madrid and one point adrift of Sevilla in second. With Leo we are much stronger, but without him we are still a strong team.
“We just want Lionel to recover and return to play for Barcelona and for the national team”.
Atletico Madrid are not in action until Sunday, when they welcome Deportivo La Coruna to the Vicente Calderon.
The Madrid defender helped Villarreal go in front in the first-half injury time when he blocked Manuel Trigueros’ shot with his arm, setting up Bruno Soriano to score the penalty kick. But Ramos makes amends heading home a cross to make it 1-1.
Neither Cristiano Ronaldo nor Gareth Bale looked at their sharpest after both Madrid forwards were rested against Espanyol.
Luis Enrique’s side, unbeaten in 12 league games against Atletico, had controlled much of the proceedings in the first half but found it hard to muster clear-cut chances, before Rakitic headed in Andres Iniesta’s cross from a short corner.
“He should have played against Venezuela”, Bauza added. We’re already thinking about playing the games without him.
Barcelona’s next match is at Sporting Gijon on Saturday.
Las Palmas have won three of their opening five league matches but must quickly put Wednesday night’s 4-1 hammering against Real Sociedad in San Sebastian out of their minds.
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Manchester City recorded their ninth successive win under Pep Guardiola by seeing off Swansea 2-1 at the Liberty Stadium.
