The Camp Nou served as an unbeatable setting for the redemption of Marc Bartra. The Betis central signed a remarkable encounter last Saturday before his former team and chained four consecutive starts for the first time this season with the Verdiblanco team. Four compelling appearances and four wins for the Pellegrini team. A single goal conceded. And the feeling that the Bartra who landed in Heliopolis in the winter 2018 he’s back. It is celebrated by the Verdiblanco club and also by Pellegrini, aware of the maximum need it has in that defensive section and what it means to have a trick more trust with Bartra.
Luck did not accompany the Catalan central during the last campaign. Their injuries and a health problem conditioned his development and he could hardly show his real version until the end of the course. Other injury came on the scene at the beginning of this season, but Bartra elusive again the setbacks to ask Pellegrini for more playing time. He found it with the injury of Germán Pezzella and with rotations that provide opportunities for everyone. Now, his brilliant performance at the Camp Nou dispels many doubts.
The Betis knows that its main deficiencies are in its defending. It showed little reliability during its worst stretch of this campaign, when the three consecutive defeats prior to the last break, and glanced at the winter market despite the fact that the options to make investments are nil due to the existing economic chaos. For Pellegrini, his four pieces behind have practically the same options to start in their eleven. Pezzella arrived like main reinforcement, but did not find a reliable version capable of make Aissa Mandi forget. Victor Ruiz had an injury that stopped his prominence and Edgar entered the scene with more bold than shine. The bartra moment is back on the table. And Pellegrini wants to take advantage of it.