Xavi Hernández

[Horatio]

Relax, Xavi only arrived just 3 weeks ago with no pre-season.

A lot of work still needs to be done.

Plus some players were away on international duty.

 

[BusiTheKing]

Well, Xavi is pretty displeased now on the post-match interview. Says Villareal didn't deserve to lose and that we played badly. Says we couldn't beat their high press and we were dominated for too long.

So, basically very critical. Good words, showing this match was basically us getting a lucky win not playing what we should have played.

that's actually quite reassuring

 

[soul24rage]

Plus some players were away on international duty.

tru

 

[serghei]

40 minutes of play between our first goal and Depay's winning goal were like someone playing FIFA for the first time. Unable to play out of defense, all passes intercepted, all second balls lost, players constantly drawn out of position, etc.

Not sure it's the right comparison, but yea, to beat a high press you need to be quicker and pass better. We failed at both.

 

[Bobo32]

Relax, Xavi only arrived just 3 weeks ago with no pre-season.

A lot of work still needs to be done.

I have been relaxed and still am, but this was a bit worrying. We are here to discuss what we see, right?
Nice that he is self-critical at least, let's hope we see something very different next game already.

 

[Horatio]

Gonna sit down for the Xavi post-match interview now.

 

[serghei]

i have a feellng he wants too badly to be a genius with this weird formation. defensively it's clearly very inefficient, inflexible and just overall confusing.

offensively our major issue is getting it out from the back and starting an attack momentum. playing it out from the back must be a plan, not THE plan.

No, it must be the plan. You either pass it from the back or hoof it long. We should pass from the back no doubt, but do it better than today.

 

[khaled_a_d]

This just shows that Xavi is not as much of a purist as some feared. Everybody was scared we'd be naively playing tiki-taka, but here we are holding on and defending a 1-1 and nicking the win on the counters.

I don't like it either, but the team needs a lot of work to shine in that direction.

You can say he isn't purist in the sense that he didn't play tiki-taka, but OTOH he had obsession with trying to create numerical advantage at the middle.
That Mingueza sub could have killed us. We had one wide on the pitch the whole game, well 2 at times since Coutinho showed up

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Anyway that was a pathetic game but getting all 3 points Villareal away is immense. If Madrid drops points tomorrow league race is back on.

Lets go keep grinding out shitty wins for now.

 

[Andresito]

Doubt this will be his go to formation with everyone fit.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Shame about the benfica match, Xavi was so close to a perfect start

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Shame about the benfica match, Xavi was so close to a perfect start

Sometimes you end more successful if you dont have the perfect start

 

[Andresito]

One week's rest now. Could come in handy after an intense couple of weeks.

 

[soul24rage]

Sometimes you end more successful if you dont have the perfect start

Tru

Portugal in Euro 16 has taught me that

 

[serghei]

Big match vs Betis next. They have 1 point more than us.

One week's rest now. Could come in handy after an intense couple of weeks.

Yeah. Especially since with the injuries, we have to play roughly the same players every game. We need some easier La Liga game to rotate a bit. That's on December 19 vs Elche at home.