Xavi Hernández

[JamDav1982]

Neither Torres or Fat are one on one touchline wingers either.

If Xavi has them hugging touch line would guess most teams leave them there in space and stay compact in middle.

For it to work need to allow them to come inside when possession won and likes of Pedri etc to know how and when to find them or even when to overlap on outside of them is needed.

Seems like a system dont have players to play to be honest in terms of the wide players.

Other side of it the defensive 5 players would be made up of Busi, Alves, Alba, Pique...good luck those four defending teams on break.

 

[serghei]

Neither Torres or Fat are one on one touchline wingers either.

If Xavi has them hugging touch line would guess most teams leave them there in space and stay compact in middle.

For it to work need to allow them to come inside when possession won and likes of Pedri etc to know how and when to find them or even when to overlap on outside of them is needed.

Seems like a system dont have players to play to be honest in terms of the wide players.

Other side of it the defensive 5 players would be made up of Busi, Alves, Alba, Pique...good luck those four defending teams on break.

Precisely. We have no wingers who would tear up teams based on that model. Hug the wing, make teams pay the price of going too compact. Xavi has to realize this is not Barca where you have Ronnie, Messi, even Henry, or Neymar wide.

He needs more movement out of his wingers, and a different orientation. Less classic hug line and cause havoc there, and more what Spain is doing, which is fluidity, high movement, hard to guess what they will do since they switch it up a lot.

His model is basically as if you have Vinicius and Mbappe as wingers. Way too simple. This is not a galactic team where you apply a basic system and let the players do the work because they are world-class individually. Wouldn't that be easy...

 

[khaled_a_d]

He also needs to stop fixing wingers to the line almost all the time. No top team does that, they alternate between that, and wingers dropping in midfield, going more central, basically clearing the lines for other players to exploit spaces wide, whether fullbacks or even midfielders.

We don't have game-changers wide.

That is the problem, we don't have fullbacks who can exploit space anymore.
Alba used to do it but is having bad year, although Xavi isn't helping him at all tbf.
Dest has the physical attributes to do it, and when focused will do it but that is fairly rare sight, Alves is ancient and Balde is a baby, while Mingueza is shit.
I don't like it at all, but Xavi choose the wingers to be the wide players and fullbacks to be the ones who drop in the middle, it is unorthodox but I will give it time to see bigger sample size

 

[Catta]

Can he end the streak. Last 4 Barca coaches all lost their first Clasico. Lucho lost 3-1, EV 3-1, Setien 2-0 and Koeman also 3-1.

 

[serghei]

That is the problem, we don't have fullbacks who can exploit space anymore.
Alba used to do it but is having bad year, although Xavi isn't helping him at all tbf.
Dest has the physical attributes to do it, and when focused will do it but that is fairly rare sight, Alves is ancient and Balde is a baby, while Mingueza is shit.
I don't like it at all, but Xavi choose the wingers to be the wide players and fullbacks to be the ones who drop in the middle, it is unorthodox but I will give it time to see bigger sample size

Yeah, it's a different approach than what I'd like to see. I remember Lucho doing the same with Alba for example and Neymar. But that was peak Neymar. Not Abde and Dembele.

 

[serghei]

Can he end the streak. Last 4 Barca coaches all lost their first Clasico. Lucho lost 3-1, EV 3-1, Setien 2-0 and Koeman also 3-1.

Neither of them had the greatness of Tata "Barbecue Man" Martino .

 

[soul24rage]

Neither of them had the greatness of Tata "Barbecue Man" Martino .

The real mister.

 

[freetocan]

Just read our attack for today: Dembele, Depay, Abde. I guess Dembele, Luuk de Jong, Ferran Jutgla/Ferran Torres might have been much better.

 

[Bobo32]

Just read our attack for today: Dembele, Depay, Abde. I guess Dembele, Luuk de Jong, Ferran Jutgla/Ferran Torres might have been much better.

I wonder how he'd justify choosing Depay over Luuk this game, when he spoke so nicely about meritocracy and so on just the other day.

Depay played 30 minutes, tried 10 passes and failed 4 of them, gaining 0 meters from the passes. Before his injury he had been terrible too of course.
Luuk scored 3 goals (1 disallowed because of an earlier offside) in his last 2 games, and almost scored another two from fantastic finishing and had yet another one in the woodwork from another decent finish.

 

[mc_lovin]

I mean there's still training, you know? Who knows how Depay performed there.

 

[Bobo32]

I mean there's still training, you know? Who knows how Depay performed there.

Doesn't really matter though. A manager could be excused for being fooled by training performance after a week or two, but Xavi has been there long enough already. He is 100% responsible for switching Luuk for Depay last game and the decline in quality that resulted.

 

[KingLeo10]

Deserves to be sacked this season for continuing to start Busquets and Pique against every single opponent.

Coward.

 

[BarcaOG]

Deserves to be sacked this season for continuing to start Busquets and Pique against every single opponent.

Coward.

he wont bench these clowns no matter how bad they perform

imagine having a guaranteed starting spot in FC fucking Barcelona no matter what. i would be about as useful as them

 

[BarcaOG]

Xavi was supposed to destroy the amigos, not join them

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Xavi was supposed to destroy the amigos, not join them

It's his potential downfall. Delusion of world class players needs to go.