Hamstring injury rules out Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele for a month

After FC Barcelona’s 5-1 Champions League round of 16 win over third-placed French side Olympique Lyonnais, the Spanish side confirmed that winger Ousmane Dembele, who scored their last goal in that tie, will be out for a month with a hamstring injury.

The French-born forward only played the last 20 minutes of that match as he was a doubt going into the game, his goal increasing his European scoring tally to three with earlier strikes in the campaign coming against PSV Eindhoven and Tottenham Hotspur.

Current La Liga table-toppers Barca confirmed that the 21-year-old had undergone tests on his injury after the Champions League tie. The news will come as a blow for the Blaugrana as they already have three players out, Rafinha, Thomas Vermaelen and Jean-Clair Tobido completing the injury list.

Dembele has had a hot and cold season which saw him out of favour in October before recently reviving his Barca career and battling Brazilian Philippe Coutinho for a spot in the side.

On the club’s website the statement read:

“Ousmane Dembélé has undergone tests with the FC Barcelona Medical Services on Thursday morning and it has been confirmed that he has torn the femoral biceps muscle in his left hamstring. This means he will be out of action for an expected three or four weeks.”

With the injury expecting to rule the Frenchman out until this time in April, he is expected two miss two vital matches for his side.

Those games are a La Liga match against rivals Atletico Madrid on the 6th April as well as the first leg of whoever the Spanish side draw in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, with that tie set to take place on either 9th or 10th of April.

The worry in the Barca camp is that their player could have setbacks like last season, as the winger only featured in 17 La Liga matches for the current champions in the 2017/2018 campaign.

Since joining for an initial cost of £96.8m from German side Borussia Dortmund, Dembele has played 58 times for the Spanish giants scoring 18 times and providing 16 assists.

With the injury to the 21-year-old coming in the business end of the season, Barcelona will need someone to set up out of Brazilian team-mates Coutinho and Malcom.

Barca lead La Liga by seven points ahead of Atletico Madrid on 56, after recently beating Sevilla and Real Madrid in the league. Their next match is on Sunday as Barca travel to the Estadio Benito Villamarín to face rivals Real Betis.