Football
Sam Marsden, Barcelona correspondent 7y

Barcelona captain Andres Iniesta out of Espanyol game through injury

Barcelona captain Andres Iniesta will miss Saturday's Catalan derby against Espanyol with a groin problem, the club have confirmed.

Luis Enrique wanted to leave it as late as possible before making a decision on the midfielder's fitness, but was finally forced to leave him out of his 18-man squad for the game at Cornella-El Prat.

The Blaugrana have not revealed how long they expect to be without Iniesta, with just three league games and the Copa del Rey final to come after this weekend.

It has been a stop start season for Iniesta, who has suffered a variety of injury problems.

A calf injury ruled him out for a couple of weeks earlier this year, while he was out of action for six weeks earlier in the campaign after sustaining a knee injury in October's win at Valencia.

On top of that, Luis Enrique has tried to manage the 32-year-old's minutes carefully -- an unused substitute in the midweek win over Osasuna, he has started just 10 La Liga games all season.

Andre Gomes and Denis Suarez are the candidates to replace him in midfield.

Barca are also without injured trio Rafinha, Jeremy Mathieu and Aleix Vidal at Espayol, but Neymar returns from a three-game ban.

Luis Enrique's side begin the game top of the table, tied on 78 points with Real Madrid -- who have a game in hand -- but lead the way courtesy of their superior head-to-head record.

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