Xavi Hernández

Best managers around?

Zidane was not proven but worked, Ancelotti was picked up from average Everton side not sad to see him go, before that Lopetegui/Solari/Benitez etc

Real are not going out and appointing the best coaches around in recent years. That is just a throw away comment with no reality behind it.

What they have been better at is not allowing old players to get too powerful and scare shit out of board. They also have older players that can still perform and have legs at a top level. Not players like Busi and Pique that have been getting embarrased in big games for years.

Real just has better management all around. Players performed and transfers were logical and business smart. Barca didn't have that. Really I think the board suffered from the greatness that was MSN and as a result didn't try with their overall management (corruption too of course)

JamDav1982 said:

Best managers around?

Zidane was not proven but worked, Ancelotti was picked up from average Everton side not sad to see him go, before that Lopetegui/Solari/Benitez etc

Real are not going out and appointing the best coaches around in recent years. That is just a throw away comment with no reality behind it.

What they have been better at is not allowing old players to get too powerful and scare shit out of board. They also have older players that can still perform and have legs at a top level. Not players like Busi and Pique that have been getting embarrased in big games for years.

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Should probably rephrase that. The best managers for Real Madrid. Perez is a straight up gangsta. He always wants to be THE MAN at the club. No player or manager is above him. They serve the purpose and when he feels they aren't of any use he gets rid of them. Cold but it works.
Contrast this with our situation. Five years on from the Roma debacle and we still have amigos and are in the EL 😂
It's also hard to fathom how Modric, Kross and Casemiro are still performing. That trio is better than Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets. Not by much but still better.

Barcilliant said:

Yeah, current squad is not good enough but how and what is Xavi trying to achieve style wise?
Play De Jong in the DM role or get another DM Kessie for example. Get another CB or full back.

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It's not as easy as get another DM. What's this obsession with a guy like Kessie? He's Alexandre Song 2.0

Get another CB or DM sounds nice, but we don't have the money. Club has decided attack is lacking and rightly so. That's why we prioritised getting an attacker in this window. CB and DM will probably come in the summer.

All the managers we got after Pep have been shit or mediocre at best. All the players we got after Neymar left were shit or mediocre at best.

We tried getting players in midfield and attack, but all have been massive failures or underwhelming. How can a manager not start Busquets when we don't have a solid replacement. Sure, a case can be made that he should not play all games. But otherwise there's nothing better in the squad.

And no, this fucked up logic that we should just drop players and play any player just because we got fed up with the veterans is no way to handle the situation.

Xavi got angry that Bar?a lost too much ball against Granada. Here is how often each player lost the ball during the game, according to Sofascore.
Dani Alves - 12 (74 touches)
Gerard Pique - 7 (83 touches)
Eric Garcia - 4 (63 touches)
Jordi Alba - 12 (98 touches)
Sergio Busquets - 17 (99 touches)
Gavi - 9 (50 touches)
Nico Gonzalez - 15 (61 touches)
Usmane Dembele - 14 (63 touches)
Luc de Jong - 12 (31 touches)
Ferran Jujla - 8 (40 touches)
Bench:
Clement Langle - 2 (30 touches)
Memphis Depay - 4 (11 touches)
Abde Ezzuli - 5 (15 touches)
Alvaro Sans - 0 (3 touches)
Just draw your own conclusions. The essence of Barcelona is possession. Also, once a team puts on abs and speed, the players on the pitch cannot resist it, any club, not just Bayern Munich. Just draw your own conclusions.

Conclusion is that Clement Langle needs to play more.

Team can't control the game like Peps Barca, what is probably what Xavi would like to see when he keeps going on about defending with the ball. But that simply won't happen.

Technically, tactically and even mentally we're far away from that. Players don't have the ability to absorb pressure like back in the day, and they get nervous and make mistakes we can't afford to make.

Will be tough to get there again, we can't expect a bunch of bums and kids to have that kind of confidence. But needs to be addressed somehow, we can't afford to throw games like that in the end, even with the shitty squad we should have won that game.

The biggest problem is the lack of decisive quality in the final third. Sure Pep could get the team to retain the ball but if there is no threat of goal then teams will pressure us into mistakes.

Which is what we had against Granada. Pepball of 10 years ago would face the same issue in modern football.

It is akin to a boxer with no pop facing Canelo. You can dance around and jab and start well but sooner or later you will get walked through as you have no threat.

All the tactical nuances will count to nothinh until we add a Haaland, Fati and Ferran (if he can carry his numbers long term that he showed at City).

Dembele and Abde have pace to scare, but no end consistent end product. And certainly no one to provide it to.

In the end we are overthinking. No matter how much makeup you use, Sara Jessica Parker is never going to win Miss Universe!

Porque said:

The biggest problem is the lack of decisive quality in the final third. Sure Pep could get the team to retain the ball but if there is no threat of goal then teams will pressure us into mistakes.

Which is what we had against Granada. Pepball of 10 years ago would face the same issue in modern football.

It is akin to a boxer with no pop facing Canelo. You can dance around and jab and start well but sooner or later you will get walked through as you have no threat.

All the tactical nuances will count to nothinh until we add a Haaland, Fati and Ferran (if he can carry his numbers long term that he showed at City).

Dembele and Abde have pace to scare, but no end consistent end product. And certainly no one to provide it to.

In the end we are overthinking. No matter how much makeup you use, Sara Jessica Parker is never going to win Miss Universe!

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Definitely also true. Both need work imo. Issue right now is we can't reliably finish games no matter how, not the attacking power to go up 3-0, 4-0 in good games and not good and calm enough on the ball and solid enough in defense to ride a one goal lead home without constantly being in danger of losing points.

MTL_Barca said:

Definitely also true. Both need work imo. Issue right now is we can't reliably finish games no matter how, not the attacking power to go up 3-0, 4-0 in good games and not good and calm enough on the ball and solid enough in defense to ride a one goal lead home without constantly being in danger of losing points.

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Don't get me wrong, there is also a lack of testicular fortitude (man what a phrase) in this squad. We can't be beating Celta Vigo 3-0 by HT and end up drawing.

Gari said:

Xavi got angry that Bar?a lost too much ball against Granada. Here is how often each player lost the ball during the game, according to Sofascore.
Dani Alves - 12 (74 touches)
Gerard Pique - 7 (83 touches)
Eric Garcia - 4 (63 touches)
Jordi Alba - 12 (98 touches)
Sergio Busquets - 17 (99 touches)
Gavi - 9 (50 touches)
Nico Gonzalez - 15 (61 touches)
Usmane Dembele - 14 (63 touches)
Luc de Jong - 12 (31 touches)
Ferran Jujla - 8 (40 touches)
Bench:
Clement Langle - 2 (30 touches)
Memphis Depay - 4 (11 touches)
Abde Ezzuli - 5 (15 touches)
Alvaro Sans - 0 (3 touches)
Just draw your own conclusions. The essence of Barcelona is possession. Also, once a team puts on abs and speed, the players on the pitch cannot resist it, any club, not just Bayern Munich. Just draw your own conclusions.

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I think these numbers might be a bit incorrect, and there are some more analysis to be made than just these simple numbers of course.

But the numbers are still striking, and the most striking thing to me is:
Nico: 61 touches, lost it 1/4 them.
Gavi: 50 touches, lost it almost 1/5 of them.
Sanz managed to not lose it, but otoh he played 15 minutes with only 3 touches, that's 18 touches per game...
Busquets lost it almost as much as Gavi, but he also plays with some difficulty, and was a lot more involved, but I think it was one of his worst games...

I have almost always laid my eyes on the terrible turnover rate of the forwards, and I believe I have been right about that, but these midfield numbers are pretty terrible.
My "darling" Puig is on 86,8 touches per 90 (2nd of the squad after Alba), and with the best pass completion rate of the team with 94,3%, but he seems to have become permabenched for what, 5 turnovers in a half?

Forwards:
Depay losing it more than 1/3 of the time, and only having 11 touches in 35 minutes, never playing the ball forward, is of course terrible
Abde losing it 1/3 of the time is almost as terrible
Luuk losing it even more than Depay is terrible, but at least he offered some clinical finishes
Jutgla losing it 1/5 is maybe decent for an attacker, but he also offered very little threat
Dembele lost it more than 1/5 of his touches, but I believe the numbers look better because he use so many touches while dribbling.

A disappointing and depressing loss, and Xavi was correct in his analysis of too many stupidly lost balls, and too little control through the ball at the end of the game, but what is he going to do about it? Continue to play Depay every chance he gets? Dembele? What are his plans for the midfield?

There is some truth to Porques analysis, but I think the control should come first, and then the threat. There should of course always be a threat in the controlled passes too, but these fail rates can't really be overseen, they should be fixed first, and when the team is confident in not having fail rates like that, they can begin to take some chances with the ball in order to offer a threat. Maybe if the rest of the team was on Puigs fail rate, then one Dembele might be a good thing, but the entire team cannot play with these fail rates and expect to win long term - not with these kinds of players.

MTL_Barca said:

Team can't control the game like Peps Barca, what is probably what Xavi would like to see when he keeps going on about defending with the ball. But that simply won't happen.

Technically, tactically and even mentally we're far away from that. Players don't have the ability to absorb pressure like back in the day, and they get nervous and make mistakes we can't afford to make.

Will be tough to get there again, we can't expect a bunch of bums and kids to have that kind of confidence. But needs to be addressed somehow, we can't afford to throw games like that in the end, even with the shitty squad we should have won that game.

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EV saw this from the beginning and probably why he implemented bus parking tactics. Squad was not good enough to play possession.

Richard.H said:

EV saw this from the beginning and probably why he implemented bus parking tactics. Squad was not good enough to play possession.

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I think you're giving EV too much credit here. Him and Koeman also aren't very possession-oriented managers.

MTL_Barca said:

Team can't control the game like Peps Barca, what is probably what Xavi would like to see when he keeps going on about defending with the ball. But that simply won't happen.

Technically, tactically and even mentally we're far away from that. Players don't have the ability to absorb pressure like back in the day, and they get nervous and make mistakes we can't afford to make.

Will be tough to get there again, we can't expect a bunch of bums and kids to have that kind of confidence. But needs to be addressed somehow, we can't afford to throw games like that in the end, even with the shitty squad we should have won that game.

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This is the reason why I want us to move fast and bring in players. I will keep an eye on Xavi as well. When Pedri comes back, if Busi plays non-stop again then it means Xavi rates him a lot no matter who is available.

This excuse with we're trying to play X way and we end up playing Y doesn't last for long. If players continuously are unable to implement your ways, you're either not managing them right, or they are not good enough for the job.

serghei said:

I think you're giving EV too much credit here

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[MENTION=23192]Messigician[/MENTION] u gonna let this slide?