Monday saw Barcelona unveil new signing, Ferran Torres, though at the time of his unveiling the club had still been unable to register him as a playing member of the first-team squad.
Given the Catalan club’s huge financial problems, the position that they find themselves in is that they need to sell players in order to save on wages and give themselves some wiggle room to meet La Liga’s FFP rules and regulations.
Notwithstanding what might be going on behind the scenes for Torres’ registration to take effect as soon as possible, another problem came to light not long after a training session which took place at Camp Nou after the official unveiling.
If Barca thought they had enough issues already with injuries and illnesses in the team, two more positive covid cases, reported by Sport, means that Xavi’s side will be light on first-team players again for their next La Liga fixture at the weekend.
What’s more, Torres was one of those to test positive, along with midfield star, Pedri.
With the Spanish Super Cup game against Real Madrid also on the horizon, this is another issue that Barcelona could well do without, and is likely to throw Xavi’s plans into further disarray.
As long as the situation can be managed and doesn’t get too much worse, Barca could reap the rewards later in the season.
Their improvement has been marked since the Ronald Koeman era and the early stages of Xavi’s time as manager, and with some of their best players due to shortly return, there’s every reason to think that the Catalans could soon be over the worst of it.