Barcelona have suffered yet another injury blow with news that Philippe Coutinho will be unavailable for two-to-three weeks with a thigh injury.
The Catalan side announced Thursday that scans revealed Coutinho suffered “a small break in the femoral biceps” in his left thigh.
The injury rules Coutinho out of this weekend’s match against Real Betis, as well as Brazil’s upcoming games against Uruguay and Cameroon.
Based on the timeframe for his return, Coutinho might have a chance to return after the international break in time for the crucial league encounter with Atletico Madrid on Nov. 24.
Coutinho has scored 15 goals in 38 matches since joining Barcelona from Liverpool in January.
Coutinho joins Lionel Messi in the team’s treatment room as the Argentine recovers from a broken arm suffered late last month. Messi, however, has returned to training, but Barcelona have yet to confirm whether he will be available against Betis, or rather after the international break.
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ASHBURN, Virginia — Washington Redskins running back Adrian Peterson, in the midst of a career rejuvenation, had a natural reaction to his offense’s injury news Monday. The Redskins lost three starters, two of whom helped open holes for some of his 600-plus yards in the first half of the season. It could change the direction of not only the Redskins’ season, but determine his success as well.
“Me and my friend Maker’s Mark, we had a long night,” Peterson said.
But Peterson knows whiskey isn’t the answer to what ails the Redskins. More success from him, however, would be the antidote to their problems. And they say his numbers don’t have to change a whole lot just because of injuries to those blocking for him.
When the Redskins play at Tampa Bay on Sunday, they will be missing three of their original starting offensive linemen — left tackle Trent Williams (dislocated thumb), left guard Shawn Lauvao (torn ACL) and right guard Brandon Scherff (torn left pectoral muscle). And a fourth, right tackle Morgan Moses, did not practice because of a knee injury.
There’s a chance the starting five offensive linemen will include two players who weren’t on the roster until Monday.
Redskins running back Adrian Peterson will be without three of the team’s original starting offensive linemen against the Bucs on Sunday. Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports
“You’ve just got to stay positive and keep pressing,” said Peterson, the NFL’s ninth all-time leading rusher. “It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not the end of the season for us. We all have to perform better. That’s the mindset that I have. … There’s something different when you lose three starters to where your mindset shifts to, ‘I just gotta do more than what I was doing before.'”
That’ll be hard to accomplish. Peterson has rushed for 604 yards, fifth best in the NFL, surpassing what many expected from him after he signed with Washington in mid-August. The Redskins are 5-3 and in first place in the NFC East because of Peterson and their defense. They control the ball on offense and have limited offenses — save for New Orleans and Atlanta.
Peterson also needs more help to continue climbing career lists: He’s 380 yards from passing Eric Dickerson for eighth in rushing and needs two more rushing touchdowns to pass ex-Redskin John Riggins for sixth on the all-time list.
For the Redskins to keep winning, Peterson must remain a vital part — no matter who’s blocking.
“He just goes through his reads like he normally would,” Redskins coach Jay Gruden said. “It doesn’t matter who’s blocking for him — at guard, center, tackle, tight end, fullback — if we had one — or receiver. He’s just going to go through his progressions and make his cuts and do what he does. It doesn’t matter.”
The Redskins use a lot of different run schemes; Peterson said opponents sometimes express amazement to him after games over the diversity of Washington’s rushing attack. The Redskins use inside and outside zone as well as power gap schemes. They’ll pull the guards; they use jet-sweep action to slow backside pursuit.
They’re hoping that’s one reason Peterson can still succeed.
“A lot of times that helps you because you have the ability to run gap scheme or zone scheme, whatever it may be,” said center Chase Roullier, the only original starter healthy enough to practice Wednesday. “And you can run it based on what the new guys coming in are better at. You can adjust the game plan with that, depending on how that goes. I don’t think there’s going to be any issue plugging those guys in and continuing to win games.”
But Peterson also has discussed how much he has had to learn in this offense, from the style of the run plays to taking handoffs out of pistol or shotgun formation. He has carried a career-high 44 times out of gun formation, averaging 4.16 yards per carry — his best stat out of that look since 2013. Gruden said Peterson’s comfort level on these runs is more about him taking the right path and less about those who are blocking.
“He’s getting more comfortable,” Gruden said. “We still have downhill runs and will get him going on those, too. The big thing with him is being patient with his reads. Obviously we’d rather have Brandon and Trent in there. But [Peterson] is still going to read it out. If reading inside zone, I’m pressing the line and reading one gap at a time … Hopefully he doesn’t have to read a three-technique [defensive lineman] in the backfield.”
The Redskins only had a long walk-through Wednesday, wanting to get through more plays than usual to help the new players acclimate faster. So Peterson couldn’t get any timing down with them, something he said he’ll try to do Thursday and Friday.
“Once we get going to another tempo that I can say little things to them I might see or notice that I’d like them to do differently or might work better,” he said. “Right now it’s just getting to know those guys and talking to them so they feel more comfortable. But most importantly just knowing that they’re going out and playing hard and fast is what we really need right now.”
One change could be less pulling action from the linemen. That’s an area where Scherff excelled, and without him it might become a reduced part of the plan. But just running the same plays doesn’t mean Peterson will have the same success. There have been times he has made his blockers look good; there were other times his blockers put him in a position to do well — and once he gets past the first wave, his jump cuts lead to more yards.
When Peterson arrived in August, he bemoaned the situation he found himself in with Arizona last season — running behind a makeshift line. However, the feeling has always been that Washington’s backups were better than the Cardinals’ starters. That theory will be tested.
“It’s always hard to tell [in practice] because it’s not live action,” Peterson said. “You always say the play looked great in practice when you draw it up and when you run through it in practice. But when you’ve got guys coming 100 miles an hour, things change. We have confidence in the guys we had here before we brought in these guys. The new guys have to step up.”
Real Madrid stars Casemiro and Karim Benzema are suggesting that Los Blancos players want caretaker manager Santiago Solari to stay in the managerial hot seat for the foreseeable future.
Solari has had an immediate impact since taking over on a temporary basis from sacked boss Julen Lopetegui at the end of October, winning his first three games in all competitions by a combined score of 11-0.
The 42-year-old, who spent five years at the Bernabeu as a player in the early 2000s, has been a coach with the capital club in various roles since 2013, most recently overseeing the team’s reserve side, Castilla.
Real Madrid’s performances and results have won Solari the early faith of supporters, and it appears the players are united behind him, too.
“We are facing up with Solari as coach of Madrid,” Casemiro said after Wednesday’s 5-0 Champions League win over Viktoria Plzen, according to ESPN’s Dermot Corrigan. “People can talk about whether someone else is coming or not, but we are showing him respect as Madrid’s first team coach. If things are going well, why not give him a chance?”
Benzema, who has played under six permanent managers at Real since his arrival in 2009, added: “Julen is a great coach but we are with Solari now, and playing with more confidence. For me, he should stay until the end (of the season).”
It remains to be seen whether Real president Florentino Perez will agree with his players. Real were thought to be seeking a big-name boss, but in Solari, they have a man who knows the club inside out.
A report earlier this week suggested the club is chasing former AS Monaco head coach Leonardo Jardim as a full-time appointment.
ARLINGTON, Texas — On the second play from scrimmage, Amari Cooper caught his first pass with the Dallas Cowboys for an 11-yard gain, leading the fans to yell, “Coooooop.” By the end of the third quarter, the “Coooop” had turned to boos.
The Cowboys are only at the midway point of the season, but Monday’s 28-14 loss to the Tennessee Titans seemed crushing.
The Cowboys felt energized by the trade with the Oakland Raiders for Cooper as well as the change from Paul Alexander to Marc Colombo at offensive line coach. Coming off the bye week, they felt like they had a solid week of preparation with quarterback Dak Prescott calling it “chippy,” but in a good way.
Jason Garrett and Dak Prescott can’t afford another non-playoff season if they want to stay in Dallas. AP Photo/Ron Jenkins
To come up empty at AT&T Stadium, where they had been perfect thus far this season, can be viewed only as deflating. With eight games left, the Cowboys (3-5) still have a mathematical chance to win the NFC East or earn a wild-card bid, but all of their faults were on display against the Titans.
“When you’ve played eight games and only won three, that’s a cause for concern,” said owner and general manager Jerry Jones, who added there is no scenario in which he would make an in-season head-coaching change with Jason Garrett.
On the Cowboys’ third possession, Prescott forced a pass to a double-covered Cooper in the end zone from the Tennessee 6-yard line on second down. Instead of another chance on third down or a chip-shot field goal, Prescott went to his new weapon haphazardly and was intercepted.
The Titans answered with a 15-play, 80-yard drive to tie the score.
“That was the difference, simple as that,” Prescott said. “Our defense gets us a turnover there. We’re up seven points. We go down there and I try to force the ball and give it right back to them. That’s a 14-point swing. They go back down the other end and get a touchdown and tie it up. It’s 14-0 if we convert on that. So I mean that’s the difference right there, 14 points.”
It was the fourth lost fumble Prescott has had in eight games. He had three lost fumbles last season and four as a rookie.
A Cowboys defense that started fast wilted. Dallas allowed touchdown drives of 80 and 69 yards in the first half and saw Marcus Mariota do to them what the Cowboys want Prescott to do. The Titans converted 11 of 14 third-down tries. Mariota was methodical in the passing game (21 of 29, 240 yards, two touchdowns) and ended the Cowboys’ chances with a 9-yard touchdown run with 4 minutes, 38 seconds to play.
There is only a one-game difference between 3-5 and 4-4, but mentally those records are miles apart.
With road games coming up against the Philadelphia Eagles, who are coming off their bye week, and the Atlanta Falcons, who have won three in a row, the Cowboys find themselves with their season the line. Oh, the Cowboys are winless away from home, matching the loss total (four) they had away from home in Prescott’s first two seasons as the starter.
For Prescott and Garrett, more than the season might be on the line. Their futures — short- and long-term — are on the line.
“It’s disappointing,” Prescott said. “We didn’t get the job done. It starts with me. Starting with me first and all the way throughout this whole team. Very disappointing coming off the bye week — cleaned things up, felt good going into this one. To come out with this loss, being 3-5 is very disappointing.”
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