Xavi Hernández

Status
Not open for further replies.

serghei

Senior Member
Tonight the the team played Zidaneball, but only with mediocre crossers and midgets in the box.

Yeah. That was the overall impression. Slow passing, moving it wide to the zones the opponent wants you to play in, go on the outside with Adama and Dembele, attempt some bad crosses and that's all.

Every time we tried some faster central combinations, the players had extremely bad touches, with slow thinking, and imprecise passing. Nico, even De Jong, not to mention Ferran, Memphis, and Aubameyang who were all different flavors of shit in the match.

Xavi should have given Luuk more than 10 mins in these conditions. More like 25, when you see that the more technical players are having a stinker and aren't turning it around.
 

serghei

Senior Member
I like that he is very alert with bad performances and calls them out as soon as they happen. I expect a reaction today and a better match than vs Elche or Galatasaray.
 

serghei

Senior Member
True. Every bad performance needs to be studied.

Yea, except we really don't know yet if the exceptions are the bad performances, or the great performances (Atletico, Bilbao, Valencia) were actually us playing briefly above our ability.

The Clasico will be telling I think.
 

ajnotkeith

Senior Member
Yea, except we really don't know yet if the exceptions are the bad performances, or the great performances (Atletico, Bilbao, Valencia) were actually us playing briefly above our ability.

The Clasico will be telling I think.

Partly, it was because our opponents were weak.

Bilbao were thinking to Copa game and rested key players(we also scored 2 in ET), Napoli were shitting their pants but Galatasaray were motivated af and ready to shock us.

Not to say our victories weren't impressive but there is some caveats to them that can explain why we went from unbeatable to struggling against 12th placed Turkish team at home.
 

Bobo32

Senior Member
I like that he is very alert with bad performances and calls them out as soon as they happen. I expect a reaction today and a better match than vs Elche or Galatasaray.

Yeah, but if he was more alert he'd be having the reaction after Elche, and not let on a team v. Galatasaray where half the players were rotations and anyone would believe from the start that it wouldn't really function.

I am beginning to have the same criticisms wrt Pedri that I had under Koeman with Xavi. He has really played terribly for quite a few games now, but the trust is total, complete. He is a big reason the game becomes stale sometimes, he is just jogging and not enough involved in most of the games. This is even more striking when he plays together with Frenkie, who is also too one-geared and safety playing, and has almost the same trust from Xavi. The front three was terrible last game too, but they are also left a bit too much on their own to solve everything, and they are clearly not good enough for that.

After two bad games in a row, the games before that looked like a positive trend are put in another light. At this moment, I have to say that Xavi overall has had mixed results, and has struggled to show a steady positive trend - it is more like he sometimes succeeds with his plan but just as often fails. Barcelona still have a better team than their opponents in 90% of their games, so they'll win most of the time whether Xavi succeeds or not.
 

JohnN

Senior Member
Yeah, but if he was more alert he'd be having the reaction after Elche, and not let on a team v. Galatasaray where half the players were rotations and anyone would believe from the start that it wouldn't really function.

I am beginning to have the same criticisms wrt Pedri that I had under Koeman with Xavi. He has really played terribly for quite a few games now, but the trust is total, complete. He is a big reason the game becomes stale sometimes, he is just jogging and not enough involved in most of the games. This is even more striking when he plays together with Frenkie, who is also too one-geared and safety playing, and has almost the same trust from Xavi. The front three was terrible last game too, but they are also left a bit too much on their own to solve everything, and they are clearly not good enough for that.

After two bad games in a row, the games before that looked like a positive trend are put in another light. At this moment, I have to say that Xavi overall has had mixed results, and has struggled to show a steady positive trend - it is more like he sometimes succeeds with his plan but just as often fails. Barcelona still have a better team than their opponents in 90% of their games, so they'll win most of the time whether Xavi succeeds or not.

Man, if you can't see Xavi has done an unbelievable job already to put this team back on the map I don't know what to tell you.
 

Bobo32

Senior Member
Man, if you can't see Xavi has done an unbelievable job already to put this team back on the map I don't know what to tell you.

Barcelona are back on a good trend today. Did you see the last two games? Did you see my posts shilling for his return one year ago? (I wanted him back much earlier than that of course, but was not on this forum then)
 

serghei

Senior Member
Team reacted big time after two off games, with another 4-0 win.

Last 3 games on Camp Nou in the league. 4-2 Atletico, 4-0 Bilbao, 4-0 Osasuna. 12-2.
 

Rassvet

Well-known member
I'm liking our return to a more traditional 433 after 4-5 years of having to use other systems to accomodate an aging squad.

We move
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Home of Barca Fans

Top