Barcelona with an opportunity to pull within two points of Real Madrid

Barcelona will look to keep their string of wins and positive performances when they take on second-place side Girona.

The Catalans have an opportunity to pull within two points of Real Madrid in the hunt for the LaLiga title race following Los Blancos' draw against Real Betis.

Easier said than done given how Girona have fared this season. At the moment, they are above Barcelona in the league table.

"Girona are surprising a lot of people," Xavi Hernandez said. "But we aren't at all suprised to see them joint top of the table. They play really well. Míchel is a great coach and their system has a lot in common with our own. We have a difficult opposition to face, whose confidence is sky-high. They'll make it hard for us, but we won't change our approach, we'll be vailant and take the game to them."

At the time of Xavi's press conference, Girona were joint leaders with Real Madrid. With the draw, Madrid moved one point ahead.

Barcelona is riding a two game winning streak. While that may not seem like much at all, it's the way they've gotten those wins that is a confidence boost to both the team and its supporters.

They came from a goal down to beat Porto in the Champions League and then put in perhaps their best performance of the season against Atletico Madrid. A game Barcelona should have won by more than one goal.

Still, the win over Atletico Madrid allowed them to move into sole position in third place and put some distance between them and Los Colchoneros.

However, it's not all good news as they are going to be without Marc-Andre ter Stegen for at least two months. The German goalkeeper had back surgery after being unable to recover from his injury with conservative treatments. Iñaki Peña has started the last two matches and done well to soften Ter Stegen's absence.

"We are in fine form and we need to keep that football going," Xavi said, "It's really boosted out morale and confidence. We had two huge games to play and tomorrow is another, once again against a direct rival."