Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez believes Barcelona are trying to hurry their injured stars back into action in time for next week's Champions League clash between the clubs.
Benitez feel that Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi are crucial to the Catalans in their last-16 tie with Liverpool, and Barcelona are desperate for them to be in the side.
And that desire for the pair to play in the Nou Camp next week could well have induced the row raging between Eto'o and manager Frank Rijkaard.
Eto'o has been accused by the Dutch coach of refusing to come on as a substitute last weekend against Racing Santander, and that incident has also caused Ronaldinho to question Eto'o's team loyalty.
Now Benitez has said: 'Yes, I think they have been trying to push these players back quickly for this game.'
Eto'o, who worked under Benitez when he was in charge of the Real Madrid academy, has been out for four months with a serious knee injury.
He only made his comeback recently at Osasuna, and was clearly concerned with his fitness as he jogged along the touchline during the Racing game, seen on TV in the UK.
Benitez feels that in the two months since the draw, Barcelona have had their problems while Liverpool have improved.
He said in a liverpoolfc.tv interview: 'Everyone is very excited about this game. They have been talking about it almost every day for the last two months.
'Their team is really good and when the draw was made people were saying Barcelona are the best team in the world.
'After two months we are a lot better and they have had some problems. They need Eto'o fit, and Messi, because they haven't been scoring a lot of goals.
'Yes they are really strong, they are not playing at the same level but if they have Eto'o, Messi and Ronaldinho then I think they have very good players.'
Benitez reveals an understandable knowledge of the Barcelona club and players from his days when he frequently masterminded good results for Valencia against the Catalans.
He said: 'They have some foreign players and I know Messi. I also know Eto'o as he was in the academy at Real Madrid when I was there, so I have good relations with them.
'It could be good for us to be underdogs. I think that it is important for us as we will not have big pressure there.'
He added: 'It will be hard there, but it will be good for us to score. Always for us to play the second leg at Anfield is important and we need to score in Barcelona if it's possible.
'Liverpool have never lost at the Nou Camp and they have played three times. I would like to keep this record. It's a difficult stadium to play in but we have confidence. We know it will be a hard game because Barcelona is a difficult team. We know about them, but we will try our best and I have confidence we can do a good job.
'I have watched some of their games on TV but until now I have been focused on our form in the Premiership. I said to my players that we don't think about Barcelona, we focus on the Premiership. But now we can look ahead to Barcelona.'
And Benitez believes Liverpool will have huge support from the rest of Spain against Barcelona. He said: 'We have a lot of supporters in Spain now. The rivalry between other clubs like Madrid and Barcelona is similar to Liverpool playing Everton, so I think we will have a lot of supporters for this game.
'With Valencia we won some games at the Nou Camp. We scored four goals once when Fabio Aurelio scored a very good goal. It's not easy but our results were good.'
