Has someone kidnapped Xavi?

you see he needs more rests although he has won everything and his pace and his workrate istn queite the same as it has been.. his skill and his level his playing might be stillt the same but in those big games this isnt just enough...especially if your playing in the midfield you need to rund and defend too especially if you defense is no good this season

love this pic



both xavi and scholes are great players, not taking anything anyway from xavi but scholes in his prime as no equal, his long range passing was on another planet.
even xavi himself says scholes is the greatest midfielder last 20 years

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ew-Paul-Scholes-best-midfielder-20-years.html

OT...form is temporary class is permanent.

Ursegor said:

Nailed it. For a central midfielder it is essential to have movement upfront. Now let's take a quick look at what Xavi has infront of him with this season's Barcelona.

On the left flank we have Iniesta. Who doesn't really play on the wing. He keeps drifting into midfield. He doesn't make any kind of off-the-ball runs like Villa would do. The left flank is pretty much empty.

Right infront of Xavi we have Messi. Who walks around 7 km per game, "saving energy for beast mode" and dropping deep to collect the ball. He too plays like a midfielder, he runs TOWARDS the ball, he doesn't run away from it like a conventional #9 would do to open up space.

On the right we have Pedro. Who is hugging the touchline "to keep width". With Spain he has freedom to move centrally. With Barcelona he doesn't.

To make things worse we also have Fabregas in the middle to further clog the middle.

There is no movement in this team. Only Alves and Alba provide movement but they provide it in the widest areas. They can only receive long diagonal balls. So what does Xavi do? He either plays a 5 yard pass to Messi, to Iniesta or to Fabregas all occupying the midfield zone and standing on his feet or he plays a diagonal ball out wide to Pedro or Alves. These are his options. No movement, no throughballs. Xavi doesn't play it save because he is a coward. With Eto'o and Henry providing movement upfront he produced around 30 assists in a season. An unheard of number for a central midfielder of his ilk whose main job isn't even creating in the first place but dictating.

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We all know it's like this, and unfortunately it's very predictable. Without Messi on 'beast' mode we are screwed when we play the same tactics. Pedro and Sanchez hugging the touchlines and just playing the ball back to midfield which is crowded by Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Busquets, Alves, Alba and sometimes even Pique No movement, no cutting in behind defenders and just some odd cross by Alves into an empty box.

Smile said:

He's been terrible. This is what separates Scholes from him imo. Scholes was amazing and stood out as one of the best for 15+ years and can still dictate a game now at 39 years old. Xavi is only 32 and stood out as a great for what 5 years? I've never seen such a fast decline of a great player. Legend no doubt, but certainly a lesser talent than Paul Scholes.

I don't doubt he can still dicate a game though but probably not for 90mins, so It's time to use him as a impact player or a player to bring on to see a game out and for Thiago to start.

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Decline of player ? You are one wind up merchant for sure .

Scholes wasn't even needed on this thread .And even in a shorter career Xavi's achievements are better and he has put up more great individual performances in CL and Internationals which can be considered the standard . So you better think before you post baseless comments .

Ode to Django said:

I don't think the teams doing him any good with the play extremely narrow & Messi dropping as deep as him which is needless, everything is funneling through Messi & that is the main problem IMO. That said even when there are runs being made Xavi seems to ignore them more often than not, a Coaches decision? not sure..

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The reality must be somewhere between all this . Add to it the intensive career he has had . Xavi has played almost 400 matches in the last 6-7 seasons without much break. He is not the most strongest and athletic player .

I think he is playing despite all the injuries and that is bad for him as well as the team where fit and better performing players are benched .He along like Messi and Iniesta needs a playing plan for the present and future and the management better do that at the earliest

Ursegor said:

Nailed it. For a central midfielder it is essential to have movement upfront. Now let's take a quick look at what Xavi has infront of him with this season's Barcelona.

On the left flank we have Iniesta. Who doesn't really play on the wing. He keeps drifting into midfield. He doesn't make any kind of off-the-ball runs like Villa would do. The left flank is pretty much empty.

Right infront of Xavi we have Messi. Who walks around 7 km per game, "saving energy for beast mode" and dropping deep to collect the ball. He too plays like a midfielder, he runs TOWARDS the ball, he doesn't run away from it like a conventional #9 would do to open up space.

On the right we have Pedro. Who is hugging the touchline "to keep width". With Spain he has freedom to move centrally. With Barcelona he doesn't.

To make things worse we also have Fabregas in the middle to further clog the middle.

There is no movement in this team. Only Alves and Alba provide movement but they provide it in the widest areas. They can only receive long diagonal balls. So what does Xavi do? He either plays a 5 yard pass to Messi, to Iniesta or to Fabregas all occupying the midfield zone and standing on his feet or he plays a diagonal ball out wide to Pedro or Alves. These are his options. No movement, no throughballs. Xavi doesn't play it save because he is a coward. With Eto'o and Henry providing movement upfront he produced around 30 assists in a season. An unheard of number for a central midfielder of his ilk whose main job isn't even creating in the first place but dictating.

But even this current "past it" Xavi is actually producing numbers which are completely fine for a central midfielder. Let's check the numbers:

Bastian Schweinsteiger (20 starts): 2 assists, 0.7 key passer per game, 0.2 throughballs per game (apparently the best central midfielder in the world in Bayern's record breaking season right now)

Xavi (19 starts): 5 assists, 1.4 key passes per game (EXACTLY as many as Messi!), 0.3 throughballs per game (EXACTLY as many as Messi!) (apparently past it and should be replaced)

So, yeah. It's disappoint really that Xavi has come down to only slightly above Schweinsteiger at his best levels with the shitty movement around him and injuries plaguing him for weeks now. But I guess people are just judging him by his own "the best central midfielder of all time" standards which he has set over all these years.

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I guess the only long ball or through balls Xavi has played this season would be aimed at Alves and Alba . There is no one else in this current system who makes those runs away from defenders in open space . We have got the players underperforming due to our own system . As Jorge Valdano says :

"The coach proposes and the player disposes, but the limits that the tactics impose on us are every day obfuscating more the expression of new talents. A pity. "

We think we are creating a result delivering machine with everything optimized over 1 season ,but at what cost . The real picture is made clear in these big matches where you can't get that result without imagination and novelty .

I hope it makes sense .

Gannicus said:

love this pic

both xavi and scholes are great players, not taking anything anyway from xavi but scholes in his prime as no equal, his long range passing was on another planet.
even xavi himself says scholes is the greatest midfielder last 20 years

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ew-Paul-Scholes-best-midfielder-20-years.html

OT...form is temporary class is permanent.

Click to expand...

Im sorry scholes was great but he gets way more praise then he deserves, Guys like Effenberg were better than him and proved it on numrous times when they faced each other, guys like Xavi and Pirlo are most certainly better than him, he was great at long passes but Pirlo is equal if not better at it and Xavi does not rely so much on his long pass game

MrXavi_The_Midfield_King said:

Im sorry scholes was great but he gets way more praise then he deserves, Guys like Effenberg were better than him and proved it on numrous times when they faced each other, guys like Xavi and Pirlo are most certainly better than him, he was great at long passes but Pirlo is equal if not better at it and Xavi does not rely so much on his long pass game

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wow, pirlo for real? that guy has had more time than charles bronson, a name but defo behind scholes and xavi in talent. xavi is awesome but i just think scholes could do everything xavi could do, but had a better range of vision and could score, scholes was also not in a barcelona team and i think xavi as a lot of players around him on his wavelength, i don't think xavi could do what scholes as done for man u. the guy is awesome, you must be really young and not seen scholes' whole career or on a wind up, comparing him to effenburg boggles the mind, not only has scholes been called the best by xavi himself, zidane also said scholes was the best player he ever played against.

Gannicus said:

wow, pirlo for real? that guy has had more time than charles bronson, a name but defo behind scholes and xavi in talent. xavi is awesome but i just think scholes could do everything xavi could do, but had a better range of vision and could score, scholes was also not in a barcelona team and i think xavi as a lot of players around him on his wavelength, i don't think xavi could do what scholes as done for man u. the guy is awesome, you must be really young and not seen scholes' whole career or on a wind up, comparing him to effenburg boggles the mind, not only has scholes been called the best by xavi himself, zidane also said scholes was the best player he ever played against.

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Actually I have seen Scholes during the late 90s and throughout early 00s when he was at his prime, he never could dictate a game like Xavi and he had a solid team with him from 98-03, I do believe however he was a better attacking player than Xavi, he was amazing at making runs and had a real solid long distance shot but overall I would always have Xavi in my team, as for Effenberg it is a legit comparison the guy was a midfield boss like Scholes and Xavi etc who could attack, defend create chances and score goals plus he was a leader who set the benchmark for his team, only difference is one was playing in the most popular league in the world the other was not.

wum

I think you all know my thoughts on why I think we are conceding so many at the back, so I won't go over old ground again. However, it is pretty obvious that things aren't going to plan at the moment, 3 loses in the last 4 games would underline that. I don't want to get into the old argument of whether Villa should start over Pedro, or whoever the flavour of the week is, but something fundementally has gone wrong. One loss, fair enough, 2 loses, you start to pay attention and 3 loses you start to panic. And for me it is not just because we lost, it happens and we have lost against Milan and Madrid, hardly a disgrace but it is the manner of the defeat that is most alarming. We are all over the place at the back and we are not threatening in possession. We are passing it around like the England national team, in our half and from side to side.

With Xavi we might be seeing the end of perhaps the best midfielder ever, a moment that I have been dreading. Yes, it might be just a blip as some would have it, yes he may just be struggling with an injury but either way the fact of life is that he will retire sooner rather than later and you can clearly see the drop in the team performance when he is not at 100%. What is the solution?

I have been an avid supporter of Thiago but he really did have a terrible game at the Bernabeu, his progress has somewhat plateaued in recent matches (it may be interesting to note that he has started in the last 4, of which we have lost 3) which might just be one of those things or that he really isn't a central midfielder and should be playing a little higher up the pitch. I don't know but I do know that he isn't going to be able to take on the Xavi role for some years yet and we may not have that long before Xavi is no more.

Iniesta is not the answer as relacement for Xavi as we would create a false economy situation where we would have to find a replacement for the role that Don Andres plays for the team and in all honesty my feelings are that they are different types of players anyway. The obvious answer is that Cesc should be playing that Xavi role, but for some reason the coaches don't seem to trust him in that role. I would put him there every day of the week and ask him to take on more defensive responsibility.

The other option is Busquets. He was a striker in the youth teams, has the technical ability and passing ability to play a little higher up in my opinion. I would like to see him play as a CM and see Mascherano back into a DM role. Play Messi up front, Villa on the left and Pedro on the right.

-------------VV------------
Adriano-Pique-Puyol-Alba
-----------Masch----------
--------Busi----Cesc-----
--Pedro-------------Iniesta
-----------Messi----------

I also think that Busquets has not been putting in the effort to get around the pitch that we have seen him do in the past. Alves and Alba played togther gives too much room for the counter attack teams to exploit; but Busquests needs to be getting back in between Pique and Puyol when we don't have the balland he has not been doing that. I think that Mascherano will give us a little more cover until our defence (if you can call it that) gains a little bit of it's confidence back.

Messi is not helping by coming so deep to get the ball either at the moment.

Christ alive, we do have a few problems!

Xavi is soon going to join the Museum. Sorry. Although he is more tired and drained than anything else. He can't handle 2 games a week and big games. Rest him, and he will play better, but he is not going to get better that is for sure. He will start declining as all players do and it is okay, how Barcelona deals with it is another story. Pirlo, Del Pierro, Totti, Gigga, Scholes, Zanetti (though he is insane), all get time managed and special treatment, it is time for Xavi to get special treatment. Because he isn't the problem, because he is a function of everything around him.

Thiago, is all raw and experience will continue to get the best of him for a while and this is natural. It is Busi who in my opinion who is the greatest issue (a long with Messi) because while he puts in a lot of effort, none of it is tactically correct. I mentioned the whole drop in as a CB before and that has been abandoned but maybe he is tired? Maybe he just had enough? When he looks over and sees two full backs bombarding forward he gets confused? He has been losing his cool a lot, and that was his biggest strength. I also think Xavi misses Iniesta, when Andres is too far away he just doesn't trust anyone else that easily.

To me the biggest miss is Adriano, he seemed to be an impact player who can keep the defensive line somewhat organized. But the fat man can't keep himself fit, which is fine by me because when he is fit, he is a pain in the ass.

Puyol is done. So is Alves.

What Barcelona needs is someone like Suarez because the man has an unshakable amount of confidence, he is not catalan and is a thorn in every defense's back. He is just a menace. And he is not Catalan. Like Alba who thinks he has earned all the rights to complain, shout and brag when he accomplished nothing with Barcelona (yet).

GK
Montoya Pique CB Alba
Busi
Xavi Iniesta
Pedro Messi Neymar

or

GK
Montoya Pique CB Alba
Busi
Xavi Iniesta
Messi Cavani/Falcao/Aguero Alexis

Messi either needs better wingers or needs to be thrown out to the right like before to get his ass in shape because as long as he scores and gives the coaches no reason to get more out of him, your team will suffer in big games. He can only do so much, yes even him, even if he doesn't see it.

one of your better posts raed!

Raed said:

What Barcelona needs is someone like Suarez because the man has an unshakable amount of confidence, he is not catalan and is a thorn in every defense's back. He is just a menace. And he is not Catalan. Like Alba who thinks he has earned all the rights to complain, shout and brag when he accomplished nothing with Barcelona (yet).

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Oh, you magnificent troll.

But yeah, watching a Barca team featuring Suarez would be fascinating.

GiantKiller said:

Oh, you magnificent troll.

But yeah, watching a Barca team featuring Suarez would be fascinating.

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It is true though, Sanchez lost his confidence to anxiety, Villa to class, and Pedro...to competition with Alexis. You need someone who doesn't give a shit about separatism and doesn't absorbed by the political influence of the team and just wants to succeed because he is a footballer.

Song is also another crucial mistake not because he is a bad player but the intention behind the purchase is all so wrong. No matter how you paint it, it is so wrong on so many levels. A CB will never have the patience and awareness of an actual CB. To purchase a CM for his technical ability because you need your defenders to be technically able is 1. an insult to the player, 2. fancy reasoning that is not in the right place, 3. consistent with funding Arsenal's stadium at best. Nice charity job.

So while Roura doesn't know how to get all the intricate aspects of Barcelona correct, because the man just 1. isn't a top coach 2. doesn't want to be a top coach 3. lacks experience 4. a nobody to the players/no authority, I am sure he is so confused as to what the club did when he looks at the bench and sees Song and his defense is leaking goals. I am sure they both look at each other and says wtf!? Song is probably glad he isn't part of the defeats

But beyond everything, the team faced 4 cancers news and won everything there is to win, so they can't be arsed. Simple.