Gerard Pique misses training ahead of Barcelona vs Girona as Sergi Roberto signs new deal until 2022

Gerard Pique trained on his own on Thursday (22 February) after Ernesto Valverde admitted that the Barcelona star is still struggling with an ongoing knee injury.

The 31-year-old defender led Valverde's defence in the 1-1 draw against Chelsea having also completed the full 90 minutes in the weekend's 2-0 victory over Eibar.

However, he was wearing a strapping on the knee at Stamford Bridge and Valverde revealed after the game that the Barcelona defender is yet to recover completely from the injury sustained earlier this month during a derby against Espanyol on 4 February

"Fine, he [Pique] is fine," Valverde said in the press conference before admitting: "He struggled a bit in the first half but he ended the game better than we expected."

Marca later reported that Pique is a doubt for the upcoming La Liga clash with Girona on Saturday (24 February) after he limped his way out of Stamford Bridge.

And Barcelona have now all-but confirmed the problem after revealing that the defender trained on his own on Tuesday when the rest of his available teammates begun preparations for the clash against Girona.

"The Barça squad trained on the Tito Vilanova pitch in a session that had all the first team players available. Gerard Piqué did specific work, whilst Barça B's Aleñá made up the numbers. The team will return to training on Friday for an afternoon session," the La Liga leaders confirmed in the club official website.

Meanwhile, after the training session, Sergi Roberto finally put pen to paper on a new deal which was announced by the club last month.

The versatile midfielder was linked with both Manchester United [Mundo Deportivo] and Chelsea [Sport] during the last summer transfer window with his previous release clause worth only €40m (£35.4m, $49.2m).

However, he decided to stay and on 19 January he committed his future to Barcelona by agreeing a deal until 2022 with a stunning €500m (£442m, $616m) release clause.

Sergi admitted on Tuesday that he turned down offers from other clubs to stay at the Nou Camp and urged other young players to follow the same path.

"Since the very first moment I wanted to stay here. It's true that there was interest from other clubs, but since we spoke about renewing my contract my only target was to stay here. I am very happy to stay here until 2022 and if it's longer than that, even better," Sergi said in a press conference after signing the new deal in the presence of club president Josep Maria Bartomeu.

"[To the youngsters at the club who could be tempted to leave] I would say don't stop fighting, that is not an easy path, that they focus on what they're doing here and don't look at offers. I would tell them to have patience, that their chance will arrive."