Every sign points to Hansi Flick fielding a Barcelona midfield that has never played together before when his side host Deportivo Alavés on Saturday evening in the 11th round of the Spanish league.
According to Sport, the absence of Fermín López and Dani Olmo forces Flick to find a third man to partner his two indispensables, Rodri and Pedri.
Step forward Gavi. He will play his fifth match of the season and his third from the start.
His inclusion is one of the expected surprises in the Barcelona line-up against Alavés. Confirm it, and it becomes the seventh change Flick has made to his midfield set-up since the season began.
Never before have Rodri, Pedri and Gavi started a game together in a Barcelona shirt.
Gavi ranks as the seventh least-used player in the Catalan squad, with just 191 minutes on the clock. Only the back-up goalkeepers Livaković and Szczęsny, plus Baldé, Frenkie de Jong, Hamza Abdelkarim and Bryan Fariñas, sit below him.
He last appeared against Paris Saint-Germain, the 2-4 defeat at the Parc des Princes, where he came off the bench to play half an hour.
Up to now Gavi has lined up alongside one of Rodri or Pedri, but never with both of them on the pitch at the same time.




