Xavi Hernández

[Neeraj]

We pulled all kinds of levers to hand Xavi a pretty big transfer budget, given our circumstances. What does he do? Add people like Raphinha, Torres, who came for money and garbage players like Alonso. Buys no RB, buys only RW and leaves nobody on LW, puts FDJ up for sale and lets club push him out of the club..it's bad decision after bad decision from this guy. Before we even start talking about basically 0 growth in our attacking play in terms of patterns of play. Cross and inshallah. Mindless sideway passing.

The Xavi defenders here want it both ways. Bad squad building - not Xavi fault. Bad play - not Xavi fault cause squad is bad. Rinse repeat. Sure, the crap players like Roberto, Busquets, etc. aren't his signings. But who is the one claiming Busquets as best DM in the world and playing him in every single game, including high intensity CL ones? Who is the one who gave Roberto a contract extension? The amount of batshit stupid decisions taken by Xavi is pretty incredible, with the FDJ one the icing on the cake. You can bet the Xavi defenders here would be saying Dejong wasn't ever going to good for us and we needed to look elsewhere if De Jong was killing it at United now.

We have been scraping out wins, holding on for dear life against the bottom feeders of this years La Liga. We show no progress against any decent team, heck, we aren't even showing progress against scrubs. The +12 La Liga argument is one that focuses on the result and absolutely nothing else, and is myopic beyond belief.

 

[serghei]

Lol no I had the same energy for vakverde (Didn you?) . It's pretty obvious, my stance has never changed even with this loss. I base it on logic and what I see every single game.
You are using the end result to determine progress I'm using how well we play and how games go and have gone for us throughout the season. We have been incredibly lucky at times coupled with very poor finishing. Most times that we've played decent opposition we have not come away with a win.
He has not done a great job, just an OK one.

You, and others sure are guilty of the same thing, keep bringing up the past from 3-4 years ago when the team was completely different than today. What difference does it make what happened under EV era, when he had a Ballon d'Or level player in the team?

Messi is probably the best league player of all time. Any team having Messi at a reasonably young age is gonna have insane league performance, because league is less intense than a do-or-die cup competition like CL, thus downplaying Messi's intensity and workrate issues, and a player of Messi class in a marathon-like competition such as a 38 game league is gonna be an insane advantage.

What does those days have to do with now? This is a new team, with new players, with financial issues, and yet we're gonna win probably what some other teams who pumped nearly a billion in investments in the last 4-5 years, some of which are given as example lol (fucking hilarious ) never got close to winning in many years.

 

[JamDav1982]

Xavi spent 200m+ on players that have not added nearly enough and dont even really fit to way wants to play.

Otheer than Christensen none of them have worked.

Should have been signing a RB, DM and younger CF.

Barcas best players other than Christensen are all those that were already there.

 

[Respekt_III]

You, and others sure are guilty of the same thing, keep bringing up the past from 3-4 years ago when the team was completely different than today. What difference does it make what happened under EV era, when he had a Ballon d'Or level player in the team?

Messi is probably the best league player of all time. Any team having Messi at a reasonably young age is gonna have insane league performance, because league is less intense than a do-or-die cup competition like CL, thus downplaying Messi's intensity and workrate issues, and a player of Messi class in a marathon-like competition such as a 38 game league is gonna be an insane advantage.

What does those days have to do with now? This is a new team, with new players, with financial issues, and yet we're gonna win probably what some other teams who pumped nearly a billion in investments in the last 4-5 years, some of which are given as example lol (fucking hilarious ) never got close to winning in many years.

Don't be obtuse serghei.
I literally said I had similar issues with other mediocre managers we've had in the past so It's not hating as per something you claimed me of.

You now go on a huge tangent making straw man arguments about something I didn't say. Get a grip.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

We pulled all kinds of levers to hand Xavi a pretty big transfer budget, given our circumstances. What does he do? Add people like Raphinha, Torres, who came for money and garbage players like Alonso. Buys no RB, buys only RW and leaves nobody on LW, puts FDJ up for sale and lets club push him out of the club..it's bad decision after bad decision from this guy. Before we even start talking about basically 0 growth in our attacking play in terms of patterns of play. Cross and inshallah. Mindless sideway passing.

The Xavi defenders here want it both ways. Bad squad building - not Xavi fault. Bad play - not Xavi fault cause squad is bad. Rinse repeat. Sure, the crap players like Roberto, Busquets, etc. aren't his signings. But who is the one claiming Busquets as best DM in the world and playing him in every single game, including high intensity CL ones? Who is the one who gave Roberto a contract extension? The amount of batshit stupid decisions taken by Xavi is pretty incredible, with the FDJ one the icing on the cake. You can bet the Xavi defenders here would be saying Dejong wasn't ever going to good for us and we needed to look elsewhere if De Jong was killing it at United now.

We have been scraping out wins, holding on for dear life against the bottom feeders of this years La Liga. We show no progress against any decent team, heck, we aren't even showing progress against scrubs. The +12 La Liga argument is one that focuses on the result and absolutely nothing else, and is myopic beyond belief.

I wonder what other nonsense you will come up with when we repeat the league title next year.

bu bu bu bu we aren't playin beautiful football.

bu bu bu bu we are scraping out wins.

 

[Rory]

First. we have +12 in La Liga. What the hell do you expect from him? To play like in prime Pep era and win every game by 5 goals margin? This squad has no depth and we have a constant problem with injuries. Our entire back line was injured during CL group stage. Against United we missed Pedri, Gavi and Demebele and yesterday FDJ, Pedri, Dembele and Christensen. Even stronger teams would hardly be able to compete without 4 players from starting 11.

Second, who should he play at RB??? Do we have a RB in our squad? Did we sign someone? What the hell are you even talking about?

I expect Xavi to challenge for the league title: he's surpassed this in terms of points total, and is therefore deserving of some more time. It's completely fair for fans to also point out the nuance of the situation i.e. the scraping 1-0 victories vs teams with 1% of our spending. I also expect Xavi to strengthen the squad in the correct areas. Who should we play at RB? Erm how about a player that we sign because Xavi realises we need one. Everyone here knew we needed one, yet he didn't, sounds like he's got no idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the squad then.

No one is asking to play like prime Pep, this is a straw man argument I've seen a few people throw around, it's boring to have to repeatedly counter this point when I and others haven't even made it.

The only european game we won all season is against the mighty Plzen. I expect Xavi to do far better than that given our squad and our ability to spend what we did in the summer.

 

[Neeraj]

I wonder what other nonsense you will come up with when we repeat the league title next year.

bu bu bu bu we aren't playin beautiful football.

bu bu bu bu we are scraping out wins.

Unlike immature posters here like you, I don't have an agenda. I want the club to do well, and I give my opinions after waiting for a bit. When Xavi was appointed, I wasn't sure about it since he had no experience, but I was one of the posters here who always maintained we need to give him time, even after some initial down periods. If Xavi miraculously turns it around and we see growth, I have no issue in him being our coach for the next 20 years.

So why don't you clown around with your petty squabbles with some of the other retards here and don't waste my time with your childish posts.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Unlike immature posters here like you, I don't have an agenda. I want the club to do well, and I give my opinions after waiting for a bit. When Xavi was appointed, I wasn't sure about it since he had no experience, but I was one of the posters here who always maintained we need to give him time, even after some initial down periods. If Xavi miraculously turns it around and we see growth, I have no issue in him being our coach for the next 20 years.

So why don't you clown around with your petty squabbles with some of the other retards here and don't waste my time with your childish posts.

Wining the league itself is a miracle with half the team out for business part of the season.

I am just asking you, what are you going to say when we win the league again next season when we actually play with our full squad.

Was this still lucky? still scraping wins? Ugly football?

Or are you going to give the man the champ the legend the respec he deserves.

 

[ajnotkeith]

You, and others sure are guilty of the same thing, keep bringing up the past from 3-4 years ago when the team was completely different than today. What difference does it make what happened under EV era, when he had a Ballon d'Or level player in the team?

Messi is probably the best league player of all time. Any team having Messi at a reasonably young age is gonna have insane league performance, because league is less intense than a do-or-die cup competition like CL, thus downplaying Messi's intensity and workrate issues, and a player of Messi class in a marathon-like competition such as a 38 game league is gonna be an insane advantage.

What does those days have to do with now? This is a new team, with new players, with financial issues, and yet we're gonna win probably what some other teams who pumped nearly a billion in investments in the last 4-5 years, some of which are given as example lol (fucking hilarious ) never got close to winning in many years.

What team has ever pumped billions in investment in years in the history of LaLiga?

 

[ajnotkeith]

First. we have +12 in La Liga. What the hell do you expect from him? To play like in prime Pep era and win every game by 5 goals margin? This squad has no depth and we have a constant problem with injuries. Our entire back line was injured during CL group stage. Against United we missed Pedri, Gavi and Demebele and yesterday FDJ, Pedri, Dembele and Christensen. Even stronger teams would hardly be able to compete without 4 players from starting 11.

Second, who should he play at RB??? Do we have a RB in our squad? Did we sign someone? What the hell are you even talking about?

The argument about injuries continually assumes that all our opponents have their squads fit 100% of the time and never have injury issues.

When United were missing Eriksen, Martial, Antony, Sabitzer, Lisandro, 4 of those are key players when fit, and we missed Pedri and Dembele. Is injuries an excuse there, when they were more hurt by it?

Losing yesterday is meh, we are missing some key players and you can't win every Clasico, it's just the way that it happened, losing 4-0 at home is embarrassing.

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

People need to stop for a minute and think about where we are currently and where we were a few years ago. I find it strange some do not see signs of improvement or development when it comes to how we play on the pitch, the pattern of play, our overall shape and tactical strength and crucially the calibre of players we have now. It stings, I was certainly surprised and fuming watching that 2nd half but we can go all the back to Lucho and name matches where we have gotten slapped like that. Especially with the risks we take in our high press, if we are not executing well on either side of the ball, we will get punished. It is just a reality of football now; does this result mean we toss out the baby with the bath water and pull the plug on Xavi? Hell fucking no and being reactionary after these sort of results never helps.

I said it last night on Twitter: the depth of this project has been exposed. Depth is a key reason why Real, season after season now, pick up form at the business end of the season. It is not just Xavi here; too many managers over the years have been asked to run 11-14 players into the ground each season and it inevitably continues to burn us through injury and player fatigue in these clutch, do or die matches.

I am convinced and I think it is clear we are making progress and headed in the right direction. A key intangible we are missing at the moment is ruthlessness; we are so wasteful with our chances and it really has been a theme in our play since Pep, the difference is we used to have Eto, Messi, Henry, David Villa and prime Xaviniesta creating high xG chance after chance. I am not even going to try and compare our attackers currently to any of those legends. It would be disrespectful; point being we are not at the level to where we can afford to be this wasteful with our chances and when we have momentum in a game. It has been a consistent theme in our play, all season, when we have been poor and when we have looked unplayable, which believe it or not, has happened plenty of times this season.

Barring exceptionally talented greats like Messi and Busquets (barely these days) I am pretty convinced the football Xavi wants just cannot work with 30+ players who do not have the legs to cover each blade of grass throughout the 90. Consistently the players we praise are our younger players, continually the players we criticize are these so called experienced older players. Not saying we only play 21 year olds each game, the Robertos of the world can handle the Elches and Getafes but if we cant sign quality depth players to fill in when our starters cant, I would rather give a shot to a Pablo Torre or Alex Garrido who can actually fulfill the demands of a role in a big match than someone like Roberto who can only do maybe 60-70% of what is needed.

Xavi is too trusting of players like Marcos Alonso and Roberto, to the point of whether the dreaded Spanish bias question is relevant again and he has to be ruthless with certain players (looking at that Polish fraud first and foremost) and start instilling a more clinical, ruthless nature in this squad. He needs to trust the youth; it has continually bailed us out year after year despite our disastrous squad planning.

He has shown signs of learning. It is a shame we kept being handicapped with missing key players on these big matches so we can actually get a good idea of if this can really work or not. From what I have seen this season, I think it is more positive than negative with Xavi. People have Pep ideals and standards in their heads. I think we can all now appreciate how special and lucky that was but in terms of trajectory, it is giving me a bit of Rijkaard vibes during his first two season; stuttering here and there but trending in the right direction.

Always hurts to lose a cup competition to Real but La Liga was always the priority and hopefully Xavi sees he just cant trust these dusted Spanish abuelos in the big matches. If that continues into next season with better squad players, I will start turning on him but I still think he is doing a solid job. With the right squad tweaks, a certain GOAT returning and lessening the gap between our depth players and starters, we will be more competitive across all fronts rather than just in the league next season.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

The argument about injuries continually assumes that all our opponents have their squads fit 100% of the time and never have injury issues.

When United were missing Eriksen, Martial, Antony, Sabitzer, Lisandro, 4 of those are key players when fit, and we missed Pedri and Dembele. Is injuries an excuse there, when they were more hurt by it?

Losing yesterday is meh, we are missing some key players and you can't win every Clasico, it's just the way that it happened, losing 4-0 at home is embarrassing.

this brother just named random players from united and compared them to Pedri, dembele, frenkie, christensen

 

[ajnotkeith]

this brother just named random players from united and compared them to Pedri, dembele, frenkie, christensen

Frenkie and Christensen played in both legs.

Those are their best players other than Rashford and Casimero. Should have been a cakewalk to knock them out if you think their most important players are 'random'.

Also not sure why you're playing up Dembele after calling him shit the entire season.

 

[Rory]

Frenkie and Christensen played in both legs.

Those are their best players other than Rashford and Casimero. Should have been a cakewalk to knock them out if you think their most important players are 'random'.

Also not sure why you're playing up Dembele after calling him shit the entire season.

Also with Dembele missing we still had Xavi approved 60m signing Raphinha to play RW.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Frenkie and Christensen played in both legs.

Those are their best players other than Rashford and Casimero. Should have been a cakewalk to knock them out if you think their most important players are 'random'.

Also not sure why you're playing up Dembele after calling him shit the entire season.

haha chill bro, ridiculous

Equivalent of pedri, dembele, frenkie and christen would be casemiro, varane, bruno, rashford

Not 40 year old eriksen
Not martial, who they been trying to get rid of for years
not sabitzer, the fuck?
Not the 100m worth of trash antony, who they will dump in 1 year.

Come on bro you can do better than that