Barcelona kicked off the New Year with a hard-fought but crucial 1-0 win away to Mallorca on Sunday night to finish the weekend in fifth place in the La Liga table. Barça played as well as they could for a lot of the game and survived a late blitz from the home team to win all three points despite missing 16 players.
FIRST HALF
Barça could have been forgiven for a poor performance with all of the absences and players forced to be out of position, but considering the circumstances the Blaugrana were quite impressive in the first 45 minutes: dominating possession, working the ball well from side to side, pressing high up the pitch to recover the ball in good positions, and creating scoring chances.