Barcelona suffer double injury blow, forward's return lasts just 25 minutes

FC Barcelona's bad luck with injuries continued this week with two players being ruled out indefinitely after their 1-0 win over Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League. Injuries have dogged the Catalan club from the start of the campaign, with a number of key players spending time away from the pitch.

Sergino Dest and Ousmane Dembele are the latest casualties, with the former picking up a knock prior to the Champions League clash, while the latter picked up another injury after playing his first 25 minutes of the season.

Dest was ruled in the build up to the game in Ukraine with a back issue. Barcelona confirmed that he will undergo treatment in the coming days before they can diagnose the extent of the injury and set a timeline for his return.

"The first team player Sergiño Dest has lower back pain. He is unavailable for selection and his recovery will dictate his return," the La Liga club said via a statement.

In the case of Dembele, the Frenchman's luck with injuries has been rotten since arriving in the Catalan capital from Borussia Dortmund in 2017. He has suffered multiple injury absences during his four seasons with the club and is yet to show his true potential, that earned him a £100 million plus move from the Bundesliga side.

The game against Dynamo was Dembele's first appearance this season after recovering from a knee injury that he suffered while on international duty with France at the European Championship this summer. The speedy winger played just 25 minutes of the game, but has come away with a hamstring injury that could see him miss the upcoming games against Celta Vigo and Espanyol.

"For his part, the first team player Ousmane Dembélé has a strain in the semimembranosus muscle of his left hamstring. He is unavailable for selection and his recovery will dictate his return," the statement added.

Barcelona's interim head coach Sergi Barjuan is likely to take the blame for Dembele's injury after admitting after the game that he put the winger on the pitch much earlier than expected. He will be hoping that the hamstring injury is a minor one and will not keep the 2018 World Cup winner out for a long period.

"We put him on earlier than we'd told him he would after so long out. But he makes such a difference – he plays at a different tempo, he's very direct, he stretches things," Barjuan said, as quoted on UEFA.com.