Xavi Hernández

[Birdy]

Echeveria off to City for 20m
Moscardo and Beraldo off to PSG for 20m each
Let's also recall: Alvarez to City for 21.4m in Jan. '22, Enzo to Benfica for 44.2m summer '22

Total: 125m for some of the world's best talents in CB, DM, CM, AM, CF positions

Now, thanks to Xavi, we don't have them but we are in the safe hands of Ferran, Raphina, and Lewa
for a total of 163 m of LEVERS

 

[Givenchy]

Echeveria off to City for 20m
Moscardo and Beraldo off to PSG for 20m each
Let's also recall: Alvarez to City for 21.4m in Jan. '22, Enzo to Benfica for 44.2m summer '22

Total: 125m for some of the world's best talents in CB, DM, CM, AM, CF positions

Now, thanks to Xavi, we don't have them but we are in the safe hands of Ferran, Raphina, and Lewa
for a total of 163 m of LEVERS

would be bad in a normal window if we actually had money.. the fact we pulled levers for these players is criminal. Laporta is a clown.

 

[Porque]

Echeveria off to City for 20m
Moscardo and Beraldo off to PSG for 20m each
Let's also recall: Alvarez to City for 21.4m in Jan. '22, Enzo to Benfica for 44.2m summer '22

Total: 125m for some of the world's best talents in CB, DM, CM, AM, CF positions

Imagine how Boehly feels.

About these three. We could have maybe got one of them if we didn't advance the Roque signing.

Beraldo not really needed has have Chadi and Faye.

Eche would be nice but doesn't solve our problems in first team right now. I think City plan to leave him in River for a year though. So we do have to question that if we seemingly had the 24m or so to leave Arda Guler in Turkey for a year, then we in theory could have done that here.

Moscardo the most interesting considering our DM situation and how Deco was balls deep into Moscardo.

Frustrating there's no cash for 20m prospects but none of them would solve our problems right now.

 

[serghei]

Echeveria off to City for 20m
Moscardo and Beraldo off to PSG for 20m each
Let's also recall: Alvarez to City for 21.4m in Jan. '22, Enzo to Benfica for 44.2m summer '22

Total: 125m for some of the world's best talents in CB, DM, CM, AM, CF positions

Now, thanks to Xavi, we don't have them but we are in the safe hands of Ferran, Raphina, and Lewa
for a total of 163 m of LEVERS

City spent on their squad 1.05 billions euros, and you give them as example for Barcelona. And still you can't smell the irony.

They ease young players into their teams at 21-22 at the youngest. And not even then do they have a clear starting role. That goes to seasoned mature players like De Bruyne, Grealish, Bernardo, Diaz, Haaland, Ake, Kyle etc.

The only young player that featured straight away after being signed was Haaland. And even then 22 is not that young for a talent like that, quite approaching his prime. 23-24 is close to peak physical age.

You cannot make a functioning team that is gonna fight for titles vs likes of Madrid with only 17-20 years old players. That's just dumb.

The biggest chunk of the squad needs to be made up of mature top players of 23-30 years old give or take. Some talented youngsters, not too many, and some experienced veterans, also not too many. That's it.

 

[Neeraj]

City spent on their squad 1.05 billions euros, and you give them as example for Barcelona. And still you can't smell the irony.

They ease young players into their teams at 21-22 at the youngest. And not even then do they have a clear starting role. That goes to seasoned mature players like De Bruyne, Grealish, Bernardo, Diaz, Haaland, Ake, Kyle etc.

The only young player that featured straight away after being signed was Haaland. And even then 22 is not that young for a talent like that, quite approaching his prime. 23-24 is close to peak physical age.

You cannot make a functioning team that is gonna fight for titles vs likes of Madrid with only 17-20 years old players. That's just dumb.

The biggest chunk of the squad needs to be made up of mature top players of 23-30 years old give or take. Some talented youngsters, not too many, and some experienced veterans, also not too many. That's it.

These transfers aside, your strawman of 'we can't compete with city' is fairly obvious. Very few people here think we should be competing with City, Bayern, or even Liverpool or Arsenal right now. We're talking about being a decent team that does not constantly get outplayed by scrubs in La Liga and gets beat by the worst team in European competition.

I'm not of the opinion our team/squad is good. I think it's pretty poor. But that doesn't mean Xavi is doing a good job. Two things can be true at the same time. Really tired of hearing your constant strawman arguments to make Xavi look like he isn't a joke of a Qatar level manager that he is.

Also, this undying support of Xavi isn't even merited. He has come straight from Qatar and hasn't bothered coming up the ranks in smaller teams, nor has shown success in other top teams before. You don't get benefit of the doubt when you have NO credentials in coaching. Our team and squad is good enough to beat and play better football than the likes of Alaves and Antwerp, and anyone denying that is deluded or just disingenuous. Against teams at our level - we should be compete and either play well or get results, one of the other. We don't do that either.

 

[serghei]

These transfers aside, your strawman of 'we can't compete with city' is fairly obvious. Very few people here think we should be competing with City, Bayern, or even Liverpool or Arsenal right now. We're talking about being a decent team that does not constantly get outplayed by scrubs in La Liga and gets beat by the worst team in European competition.

I'm not of the opinion our team/squad is good. I think it's pretty poor. But that doesn't mean Xavi is doing a good job. Two things can be true at the same time. Really tired of hearing your constant strawman arguments to make Xavi look like he isn't a joke of a Qatar level manager that he is.

Also, this undying support of Xavi isn't even merited. He has come straight from Qatar and hasn't bothered coming up the ranks in smaller teams, nor has shown success in other top teams before. You don't get benefit of the doubt when you have NO credentials in coaching. Our team and squad is good enough to beat and play better football than the likes of Alaves and Antwerp, and anyone denying that is deluded or just disingenuous. Against teams at our level - we should be compete and either play well or get results, one of the other. We don't do that either.

You say the team gets beaten by scrubs in La Liga, but the team is Champions of Spain to date. You say the team plays poorly, but according to stats, Barca is no1 in terms of big chance creation in the top 5 leagues.

You are simply contradicted not by me, but by reality.

The team has had some bad results so far this season in the league, losing valuable points vs smaller teams in games they dominated clearly. That's completely different than what you moan about in the above post.

 

[Gnidrologist]

It's not the bad results, it's abysmal quality of playing and obvious signs that Xavi is just throwing random shit at wall in hopes it sticks. He doesn't have a brain capacity to be professional coach and petulant whiney behavior on top makes him shit leader.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Feel Xavi lost the dressing room. Lets see how the team starts in second half, Super Copa win could boost mentality!

 

[Porque]

Feel Xavi lost the dressing room. Lets see how the team starts in second half, Super Copa win could boost mentality!

Or atleast, getting question marks from the foreign seniors who had been under world class tuition in recent years. So that's Gundagan, Cancelo and Lewy (though he shouldn't be vocal with his general shitness for the past year).

Then you probably got Mendes in Laporta's ear going "ooo eee why duntcha sack Xavi eeen bring in Bruno Lage". Then you got Deco in the other ear going "uuuu iiiii howz abootz you sack Xavi aaaan bring in Ludovic Guily".

 

[serghei]

It's not the bad results, it's abysmal quality of playing and obvious signs that Xavi is just throwing random shit at wall in hopes it sticks. He doesn't have a brain capacity to be professional coach and petulant whiney behavior on top makes him shit leader.

As said,

[Sofascore] Despite Barça having the most big chances in the top 5 leagues in 2023/24 (64), their big chance conversion rate (31%) is only 76th best.​

Creating the most big chances in the top 5 leagues is not abysmal quality of playing. It is simply a false claim. To keep any credibility in this discussions, people should ditch this fake point. It is not real.

Only match in the league that the team didn't create more chances than the opponent in must be the Sociedad one. The problems this season, big ones, are fuck-ups from the players, blunders upon blunders in defense and missing many easy chances in offense. The team-play, the tactics, have been fine. Not elite, but good.

 

[Windhook]

I'd attribute Emery's success on working in clubs where pressure to win it all is non-existent. Arsenal and 6-1 PSG loss are examples of that. Also a good example of the past is Otto Rehhagel who I bet is a legend in Greece (@Messigician) and also in Kaiserslautern, but I remember how miserable his Bayern tenure was in mid-90's when Franz Beckenbauer returned for a final time to coach big egos. He knew the club culture inside out and had enermous respect being a legend. Rehhagel couldn't sell it wherever he wasn't respected.

Now for Hansi Flick, it's more complicated. Assistant who takes over the reigns, we have to take into consideration the COVID season of 2019/20 when football stopped for 3-4 months in Europe. German clubs resumed in 2, first out of any nation in May and that physical preparation played a huge part in their triumph. In a normal seasons the catastrophe of 2-8 wouldn't have happened. Our poor conditioned lineup was ran over all second half by fresher legs and Barca were infamous for doing poor physical preparation already. We have to take this treble with some asterisk, it was played in extraordinary circumstances. Flick unable to replicate any of the success since 2020, but only failures I'd say he's not for Barca. It'd be a repeat of Bobby Robson, without a trusted translator and assistant like Jose Mourinho.

 

[Gnidrologist]

As said,

[Sofascore] Despite Barça having the most big chances in the top 5 leagues in 2023/24 (64), their big chance conversion rate (31%) is only 76th best.​

Creating the most big chances in the top 5 leagues is not abysmal quality of playing. It is simply a false claim. To keep any credibility in this discussions, people should ditch this fake point. It is not real.

Only match in the league that the team didn't create more chances than the opponent in must be the Sociedad one. The problems this season, big ones, are fuck-ups from the players, blunders upon blunders in defense and missing many easy chances in offense. The team-play, the tactics, have been fine. Not elite, but good.

Quality of play isn't only about that. Most of these chances come from random crosses and rebounds. not intricate plays, while also leaving huge gaps in defense since he went on for 4-3-3, hence the most goals allowed among top5 liga teams. Laliga is dross and Barca has mostly played bottom feeders in the first part of the season, which means they should have created more chances than their opponents. I'd also say that my eye test doesn't always agree with what "big" chances means, but i concede that forward line has been awful. Doesn't alleviate fact that legendary midfielder has no clue in how to set his midfield. They improvise instead of building up coherently or just hoof it wide. That's not something expected from Barca. Even Atletico play better possessional football that Barca right now. How cum?

 

[serghei]

I don't care about the eye test of posters who dislike the manager simply because they want to. I assumed you have some solid arguments, that's all.

Something other than like "La Liga is dross league", but just happens to have better results than most other leagues in Europe in the last seasons. Even this season, no other league has 4 teams in CL knockouts. All 4 being CL group winners.

 

[serghei]

I'd attribute Emery's success on working in clubs where pressure to win it all is non-existent. Arsenal and 6-1 PSG loss are examples of that. Also a good example of the past is Otto Rehhagel who I bet is a legend in Greece (@Messigician) and also in Kaiserslautern, but I remember how miserable his Bayern tenure was in mid-90's when Franz Beckenbauer returned for a final time to coach big egos. He knew the club culture inside out and had enermous respect being a legend. Rehhagel couldn't sell it wherever he wasn't respected.

Now for Hansi Flick, it's more complicated. Assistant who takes over the reigns, we have to take into consideration the COVID season of 2019/20 when football stopped for 3-4 months in Europe. German clubs resumed in 2, first out of any nation in May and that physical preparation played a huge part in their triumph. In a normal seasons the catastrophe of 2-8 wouldn't have happened. Our poor conditioned lineup was ran over all second half by fresher legs and Barca were infamous for doing poor physical preparation already. We have to take this treble with some asterisk, it was played in extraordinary circumstances. Flick unable to replicate any of the success since 2020, but only failures I'd say he's not for Barca. It'd be a repeat of Bobby Robson, without a trusted translator and assistant like Jose Mourinho.

Good post. Let's not forget that even Leipzig looked great in that season in CL and made the semis.

 

[Porque]

As said,

[Sofascore] Despite Barça having the most big chances in the top 5 leagues in 2023/24 (64), their big chance conversion rate (31%) is only 76th best.​

If Roque finishing is half as good as we expect it to be, then we should be serving up a carte blanche of goals for him to score.