Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman has joined other managers in lashing out at the packed European football calendar after deciding to rest Lionel Messi for Tuesday’s Champions League trip to Dynamo Kyiv.

Barca lost Gerard Pique and Sergi Roberto to serious injuries in Saturday’s 0-1 defeat by Atletico Madrid in La Liga, leaving them with only three defenders in the first team squad for the trip to Ukraine.

While the loss to Atletico sealed their worst start to a La Liga season in 29 years, Barca are flying high in Europe with three wins out of three in Group G and victory against Dynamo will clinch their place in the last 16.

Koeman said his side’s strong position in Group G was behind him resting Messi and Dutch midfielder Frenkie De Jong, but he also took a swipe at the unforgiving football schedule, saying global organiser Fifa and European counterpart Uefa should take action.

“Sometimes you need to protect the players because the game calendar is incredible,” Koeman told a virtual news conference on Monday.

“We thought it was a good moment to rest Leo and Frenkie as most of our players have played every minute with us and then they played with the national teams and Messi had a difficult trip back from South America (after playing for Argentina).”

The gruelling European schedule, which has been further squeezed by the Covid-19 pandemic, has come under renewed scrutiny recently due to mounting injuries.

Sancho return

Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho could return to the line-up against Club Brugge in the Champions League on Tuesday with coach Lucien Favre saying rotation will be the key for their busy schedule until the end of the year.

The 20-year-old England international, who is nowhere near his sensational form of last season with two goals in nine games in all competitions so far, sat on the bench for the entire game during their 5-2 Bundesliga win over Hertha Berlin on Saturday.

“We decided in favour of freshness on Saturday,” Favre told reporters on Monday when asked why Sancho had been benched.

“We will continue rotating because that is necessary. I can see no player able to play 10 matches in 30 days, especially in attack. We have a lot of options up front and we will continue to rotate.”

Solskjaer’s target

Manchester United may need six points from their three remaining Champions League group stage games to qualify for the next phase of the competition after a shock defeat by Basaksehir this month, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said on Monday.

United won their opening two games against Paris St Germain and RB Leipzig before losing 2-1 to the Turkish champions and Solskjaer said Tuesday’s return fixture at Old Trafford offered them the chance to respond and consolidate their position.

They currently lead Group H with six points but could potentially drop out of the top two if they lose again.

“We started well with two wins but we were disappointed with the last game against Istanbul. We need 10 points to go through but you may need 12 points,” Solskjaer told reporters.

Onus on stars

Kylian Mbappe and Neymar will need to rediscover their Champions League scoring touch when an injury-hit Paris St Germain take on RB Leipzig in Group H on Tuesday.

Both strikers have just resumed playing after injury layoffs but Neymar has not scored in his last five Champions League matches while Mbappe has not found the back of the net in the competition in his last seven outings.

“We’re affected if Kylian Mbappe and Neymar don’t score. They have a big impact, they’re key players and I hope they can score on Tuesday,” coach Thomas Tuchel said on Monday.

The German has to make do with the absence of defenders Thilo Kehrer and Juan Bernat, midfielders Marco Verratti and Julian Draxler as well as striker Mauro Icardi.