Valverde reveals the two Barça B players in line for promotion

Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde was asked a lot about how planning is going for next season ahead of Sunday's match against Levante. He confirmed that he wants to have a squad of between 20 and 22 players to give more chances to the youngsters coming through. In this sense, he confirmed that Carles Aleña and Oriol Busquets are both in his plans. 

Valverde explained that "[Barça] need to analyse this at the end of the season, but in the case of Carles Aleña, I think it’s more or less clear he will be with us. He’s been training with us all season and doing well with the B team. The others, we will see later. There’s Oriol Busuets, he's one player we wanted to bring up but need to see how things are with him [after his injury]."  

Asked why he doesn't use the B team players more, Valverde argues that he likes to have a "set" squad that he can work with. 

"What I tend to do is have a closed squad," he added. "That's how I like things to work, to focus on the players who are part of the squad, for them to feel comfortable. If you call [B team players] up just to send them back [down] again, players can get lost, they don’t know where they stand.

"I have Done it this year with Aleña and I have the feeling he doesn’t know what dynamic he’s working in. But it's certainly good to have players in the B team who can play for the first team, like Aleña."