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2021/22 Spanish La Liga
Matchday 22
Alaves v Barcelona
Mendizorrotza
Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Sunday, 23 January 2022
Kick-off is at 22h00
Barcelona will be looking to avoid a first
La Liga defeat to Alaves in 11 matches when they face off at Mendizorrotza on January 23.
The Babazorros last tasted success against the Catalan giants in September 2016 when goals from Deyverson and Ibai Gomez secured a shock 2-1 win at the Camp Nou.
Barca have since dominated this tie, winning eight of their next 10 league meetings, scoring 31 goals in the process and conceding just six.
The reverse fixture in Barcelona on October 30 ended in a 1-1 draw, with Luis Rioja rescuing a point for the visitors after Memphis Depay had opened the scoring.
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A late goal from Granada denied the Blaugrana all three points in their last league encounter on January 8, and head coach Xavi expressed his frustration that his team didn't kill the game off earlier.
"This is a game where we should have been 2-0 up and killed off the game, and it's our own mistakes that costs us," Xavi told the press after the game.
"We have to criticise ourselves if we want to grow and improve, because we've trained hard to try and avoid games like this, and we're still struggling.
"Obviously we're frustrated because we've dropped two points and two vital points at that."
Facundo Pellistri's loan spell at Alaves could soon be coming to an end as he doesn't appear to feature in new head coach Jose Luis Mendilibar's plans.
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The Manchester United winger has racked up just 679 minutes this season and managed only one appearance under Mendilibar to date.
"There's a clause where if I don't play a certain number of minutes, they can take me back [unilaterally], and mathematically I can't reach that even if I play every minute until January," Pellistri said in an interview with the Guardian last month.
Head-to-Head (Last Five La Liga Meetings)
Matches - 5
Alaves - 0
Barcelona - 3
Draws - 2
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