Xavi Hernández

[Messigician]

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

Nope, will be having a word with our dear serghei

 

[Kul_z]

I hope that xavi plays next month one time:
Frenkie gavi
Dembele pedri fati
Ferran

 

[BarcaOG]

xavi is out of his mind and out of his depth

 

[Birdy]

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.

You are obsessed with success and fail rate, without seeing the big picture.

Fail and success rate are not flaws/merits by themselves. You have to qualify WHERE they take place, in what types of passes, and HOW MUCH they progress play.
A lower success % coming from a player who plays dangerous through-balls (potentially leading to 1v1 or clear-cut chances) is not only not bad, but even desired.
On the contrary, a lower success % coming from a CB who just passes to GK, fullback, or partner CB is important, as a mistake there leads to clear-cut chances for the opponent.

For that reason, I have been screaming all season that lower % is OKish (with qualification) for the 3 most advanced players on the field, when they attempt close to the opposition box.
The relative benefits of what you get from that trumps the safety of an endless ball circulation that does not threaten.

I have explained xT in the past, and it is the metric that captures best the threat posed by any player on the pitch.
For attackers and attacking mds xT >>> high % rate, when they attack.
That's why for any sane coach Dembele, Ansu, even Memphis start ahead of Puig as winger, Pedri as winger, or Gavi as a winger, any day of the week.
The former can make things happen that will lead to a goal, the latter group will make sure you keep the ball and never threaten

 

[Gari]

Xavi: "Those who earn it and those who perform best will play. This depends on competitiveness and meritocracy, regardless of their name. That's how we're going to be good."Hope so.

 

[Bobo32]

You are obsessed with success and fail rate, without seeing the big picture.

Fail and success rate are not flaws/merits by themselves. You have to qualify WHERE they take place, in what types of passes, and HOW MUCH they progress play.
A lower success % coming from a player who plays dangerous through-balls (potentially leading to 1v1 or clear-cut chances) is not only not bad, but even desired.
On the contrary, a lower success % coming from a CB who just passes to GK, fullback, or partner CB is important, as a mistake there leads to clear-cut chances for the opponent.

For that reason, I have been screaming all season that lower % is OKish (with qualification) for the 3 most advanced players on the field, when they attempt close to the opposition box.
The relative benefits of what you get from that trumps the safety of an endless ball circulation that does not threaten.

I have explained xT in the past, and it is the metric that captures best the threat posed by any player on the pitch.
For attackers and attacking mds xT >>> high % rate, when they attack.
That's why for any sane coach Dembele, Ansu, even Memphis start ahead of Puig as winger, Pedri as winger, or Gavi as a winger, any day of the week.
The former can make things happen that will lead to a goal, the latter group will make sure you keep the ball and never threaten

I am not retarded, and I even put a reservation about the risk numbers I quoted in the previous post.
xT is, as I very thoroughly explained to you previously, a retarded stat though.
And you are retarded if you think it is desirable to fail for an attacker. It is desirable to be threatening, and there is a balance. Suarez had a high fail rate but was threatening, Messi too in his later years, most other Barcelona attackers have been non threatening but too high fail rate lately, and it is extreme in the cases of Dembele, Depay and Griezmann before, to the point that it is impossible to play a possession and control based game anymore. An attack of Pedro, Villa and let's say Isaac Cuenca would be enough for this team to challenge for the title. But not if the midfield play with the fail rates of last game though of course, or with the lack of threat either. To be so little involved, fail so much, and offer so little creativity, and still be so praised is really striking!

[MENTION=23291]Gari[/MENTION] I hope so too!

 

[ajnotkeith]

I am not retarded, and I even put a reservation about the risk numbers I quoted in the previous post.
xT is, as I very thoroughly explained to you previously, a retarded stat though.
And you are retarded if you think it is desirable to fail for an attacker. It is desirable to be threatening, and there is a balance. Suarez had a high fail rate but was threatening, Messi too in his later years, most other Barcelona attackers have been non threatening but too high fail rate lately, and it is extreme in the cases of Dembele, Depay and Griezmann before, to the point that it is impossible to play a possession and control based game anymore. An attack of Pedro, Villa and let's say Isaac Cuenca would be enough for this team to challenge for the title. But not if the midfield play with the fail rates of last game though of course, or with the lack of threat either. To be so little involved, fail so much, and offer so little creativity, and still be so praised is really striking!


[MENTION=23291]Gari[/MENTION] I hope so too!

A big reason why we're losing is midfield. The defense has been blamed a lot but the midfield are a screen and should contribute in attack and defense, right now it does neither.

 

[Kul_z]

A big reason why we're losing is midfield. The defense has been blamed a lot but the midfield are a screen and should contribute in attack and defense, right now it does neither.

How can middlefield be productive if your attackers doesnt provide any danger or fear of one shot one kill? Our defensive game would improve massively the moment we get a deadly attacker. Put suarez in this team upfront and we are different. Put haaland, and on wings fati(lets hope he gets injury free) and ferran(lets hope he turns good) and we become a total different animal. Imagine having attackers that pick up those 50/50 balls on regular basis, have strength, ball control, sneaky tricks and have enough confidence in themselves. I dont know how many times here on forum a lot of people agreed that we have shit attackers and defenders. Middlefield is lets say stacked. You cant ask really for much better then this considering the situation we are in, we have quality stuff at disposal. Meanwhile our attackers that were at disposal last 2 months are a total laughing stock considering all the clubs that are in eurocups. Fucking sheriff had more threatening attackers. Team is the key, you cant have world class defenders if your middlefield is shit. You cant have world class middlefield if your attackers are shit. Lets hope we have all our main players at disposal until the end of the season. We would be smarter

 

[freetocan]

Do any of you guys believe that Halland will come to Barca?it is so much noise that we will get him in summer. To me is clearly bullshit. This guy clearly said that he will prefer Spain therefore Real Madrid or Barca. If Real would like to have him beside Mbappe ( which will be 100% Real man) do you think that we can stop that? No way. Let's put each of us in Halland shoes. Should you like to join Real where you have huge chances to win more trofies, money, etc? We will never beat Real financially not considering that our management is far away from Real one. Even in hypothetical situation that he will come to us, we will not be much different than now with this team full of shit and with this no clue coach. He might get more money from us comparing with Dortmund but we will never surpass Real for the next 4-5 years and he does not like that. Even now, if we have Halland in team it would not make much difference. He scores goals at Dortmund but Dortmund will no soon finish in front of Bayern. Same could happen here. He might scores some good goals for us but, even now without Mbappe in team, Real could be easily better than us. So, again, why he. Would come to us.
Instead, if joining Real, he will make a lethal attack beside Mbappe and Vini Jr. would we ever compete with this team? So, it is so obvious, at least for me, that we should get used with the idea that from now on, maybe at least 5 years, we will be in Real's shadow. Sad but true.
With this couch who did not proove anything till now, who counts on Depay, Abde, Luuk de Jong, thanks God Dembele will leave in summer as is useless too, Braithwaite, to name just few of them, let's be serious, we have no chance to hope for more.

 

[CanadianCanadian]

Haaland coming to Barcelona only makes sense in the sense that it will make sure we have global superstars in both Madrid, Barca, and Atletico. It's good for the league and obviously for Spanish football. Unfortunately, we have shit economics, Tebas who spends more time giving interviews about the CVC deal than doing his job, and in general unless the rumoured release fee is true, no way in hell we can afford him. Our only expensive transfer that has managed to work out for us was Luis Suarez for 81 million euro's back in 2015, 7 whole years has passed since then. If we manage to get him, great. If not, then we hope Fati and Torres are able to go Super Saiyan

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Haaland might not want to play second fiddle to Mbappe or vice versa. Neymar is a good example what happens if you want to win Bdor, but you have one guy better than you who you can't beat on your team. Makes it impossible to win Bdor.

If Haaland wants to become icon himself, he will choose Barca. History shows you can win Bdors in Spain, Barca or Real. It doesn't matter. And marketing wise, Mbappe vs Haaland is juicy as ****. It can be advertised as next Messi vs Ronaldo. Absolutely massive commercial value, for the league, teams and PLAYERS. Haaland can become bigger star if he signs with Barca than signs with Real with Mbappe. Imo.

Saying 4-5 years in the future is way too long time to predict in football. No way I expected Barca to become this shit in 5 years but here we are. It's impossible to predict 4-5 in football. It's forever. Different players too, mostly.


Btw. Mbappe would win the bdors if both played for Real, French, World Cup winner etc. Haaland might not like that.

4-5 years is eternity in football actually. Dembele and Rashford went from best prospects of football to failing expectations.

Basically, if Haaland wants team success:

Signs with Real, wins CL

If he wants to become an icon and he knows Mbappe joins Real:

He joins Barca, win Bdor, maybe have some team success

That's how I see it

I think he is ambitious guy. I doubt he would want to be second guy to Mbappe. If we throw enough money at him and his agent and we can offer good project and we have CL spot, I think we can pull this off.

 

[serghei]

Xavi: "Those who earn it and those who perform best will play. This depends on competitiveness and meritocracy, regardless of their name. That's how we're going to be good."Hope so.

We'll see. I really hope somehow we will play De Jong - Gavi - Pedri by accident or forced circumstances, and we will have a superb performance that will convince Xavi.

 

[JamDav1982]

We'll see. I really hope somehow we will play De Jong - Gavi - Pedri by accident or forced circumstances, and we will have a superb performance that will convince Xavi.

Best hope of that is Busi getting injured.

Xavis tactics are going to come under a lot of scrutiny if 90 minute performances dont improve now.

With the full backs tucked in at almost DM/CM are majority of time on ball he needs likes of Pedri to come in and shine at linking the wingers and CF. If that doesnt happen then Xavi needs to get back to basics and formation that is simple and suits. Whether that be 433 or 4231.

Against Granada the wide players and LDJ/Depay were the width of pitch apart when Barca won ball back and little chance to get into smaller areas and 'overload'. Probably about main reason the two best chances were crosses into box to a largely isolated striker.

Koeman played more Pep/Barca football than that.

To be fair to Xavi there are spells of game where team look more composed and sure of their approach but useless if not really going anywhere in last third.

It is tough for Xavi at times with age of squad being old and young as the every single game the team dips in intensity and have periods clinging on but it is also on him if he bases team on older players and rarely if ever rotates them out.

 

[serghei]

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. You have clown Dembele and the Abde kid who basically waste most actions by going individualistic. This approach might have worked when we had Ronaldinho/Neymar and Messi as wingers, technical and dribbling monsters who would be lethal when in space or in any 1 vs 1 scenario.

The reality today is much different. No team really fears Abde and Dembele. Dembele had dozens of moments when he was in space vs Granada wide with just one defender in front of him. He almost never did something noteworthy. You simply need technique + speed to dribble someone in most scenarios when you don't have acres of space in front of you. Dembele simply is not an efficient 1 vs 1 dribbler because of his poor technique and ball control, inconsistent first touch. What he can do is go on the outside gain a bit of advantage over the opponent and put in a cross. If we had Haaland as a 9 Dembele could be useful. In another scenario, you don't really lose much if you give Dembele some space wide.

The whole point of playing two very wide players is to make teams stretch and create more space in the middle. They do this, and you can pass easier in the center because the spaces between the opposition's players are bigger (because they are trying to cover the whole width).

But then, teams might decide to not give up compactness in favor of more coverage wide, which means they will decide to still be compact, and give you the wings. Meaning guys like Dembele and Abde get space wide to make a difference. But the issue is, one is a nobody basically, 3 months ago nobody knew who he is, and the other is a player with a low IQ and inconsistent technique.

So, Xavi should stop pretending his wingers will impact the game and destabilize the opponent if given a bit of space. They won't. Hence why we should bring them in more. Maybe use the fullback overlap more, like Liverpool and partly City are doing.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Yeah,Koeman and Xavi both had trash squads. Xavi now has almost everyone back. Not trash anymore for sure imo. Now we will see if he can build something better. You can only do so much with LDJ, Barca B players etc.

Curious how we play vs Napoli in one month, if everyone stays healthy. We could look good. Let's hope so!