Xavi (Spanish Lego Pep) | Manager watch

If anything, this proves that Barca, even with Xavi, is still a team that quickly concedes 2 or 3 against a "high-energy-nothing to lose-long ball counters-long range shooting" side. Worse, they usually panick when they concede the second and the opposition smells the blood, and that's extra-dangerous with ruthless sides like Liverpool, Bayern or now Frankfurt.

Unless Barca truly develops a Starting XI that utterly dominates possession (like 2008-2013) they will struggle in Europe. The alternative is buying a TopTop Front 3 (like Ronnie-Eto'o-Guily) or the MSN, but currently they don't have the money for that.
 
Pretzels81 said:
If anything, this proves that Barca, even with Xavi, is still a team that quickly concedes 2 or 3 against a "high-energy-nothing to lose-long ball counters-long range shooting" side. Worse, they usually panick when they concede the second and the opposition smells the blood, and that's extra-dangerous with ruthless sides like Liverpool, Bayern or now Frankfurt.

Unless Barca truly develops a Starting XI that utterly dominates possession (like 2008-2013) they will struggle in Europe. The alternative is buying a TopTop Front 3 (like Ronnie-Eto'o-Guily) or the MSN, but currently they don't have the money for that.
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Barca need their ideal midfield 3 to start at the same time.

when fdj/pedri/Busquets start the team goes 16 games without a loss, when even one of them doesn’t start things tend to be much more difficult for them.

one game shouldn’t take away from the incredible job xavi has done in such a short amount of time. Barca were due for a loss, and Frankfurt played wonderfully.

but they will need to shore up their depth over the summer as even missing players like Dest really hurt them in that match. And Busquets can’t and shouldn’t be starting every match.
 
stefan92 said:
Starting that discussion would open a huge Pandora's Box, as we would have to start defining clear schools of thought and as most coaches drift somewhere between those it would be meaningless anyway.

And if you consider that there are not only purists who just want to implement their certain style, but also those who are quite pragmatic and adapt depending on their players and the opponent would add another dimension to the discussion.
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Agreed, trying to find authoritative definitions of the schools already looks more than a handful.
 
Xanther said:
What does it say about top-level football that a coach can enter La Liga direct from Saudi and be of such huge effect.
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Guardiola and Zidane were coaching in Tercera Division and Segunda B respectively. Sacchi in Serie C1 before joining Milan. I'm not that sure experience in strong leagues was as valuable in those cases as talent or fresh ideas.
 
Morty_ said:
Xaviskjaer?
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Seems to be a proper up and down tenure so far, some really good games, some really poor.
Next season is the kicker for him, no title charge and he'll be in trouble.
 
Can anyone confirm this information? I'm not that sure it's true:



It says: took charge of Barcelona when it was 12 points off Real Madrid, one victory away of last 16 of the Champions League and yet to play Copa and Supercopa. Currently his team is 15 points off Real Madrid, got eliminated in Champions League, Europa League, Supercopa and Copa.
 
Anybody thinks that this is similar to the time when we hired Ole? Good results initially but then Ole decided to implement his ideas.
 
The respect our fans put to other clubs whilst shifting on its own every chance they get is astonishing.
 
GatoLoco said:
Can anyone confirm this information? I'm not that sure it's true:



It says: took charge of Barcelona when it was 12 points off Real Madrid, one victory away of last 16 of the Champions League and yet to play Copa and Supercopa. Currently his team is 15 points off Real Madrid, got eliminated in Champions League, Europa League, Supercopa and Copa.
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Its true.
You like rubbing it in font ya. :lol:
 
After being 15 Games unbeaten you lose a couple and everybody lose their minds. From day 1 my only concern has been qualifyng for the Champions League and next season we will see what he really can do with a pre-season and a few new players. Let's not forget the team was 9th when he took it
 
GatoLoco said:
Can anyone confirm this information? I'm not that sure it's true:



It says: took charge of Barcelona when it was 12 points off Real Madrid, one victory away of last 16 of the Champions League and yet to play Copa and Supercopa. Currently his team is 15 points off Real Madrid, got eliminated in Champions League, Europa League, Supercopa and Copa.
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Stat might be true but it doesn't make any sense. If anything that shows how good Xavi is or how well his team performed.

So he took over struggling team midseason and kept up the pace with league leaders, that's a job well done tbf.
 
It's wrong anyways. They were 10 points behind us when he took over :D
 
I'm still rooting for Xavi to have a good ending to the season and prove that Messi wasn't carrying Barcelona. I know he can do this.

More seriously, they were never going to win all their remaining games, a stupid defeat was unavoidable.
 
roonster09 said:
Stat might be true but it doesn't make any sense. If anything that shows how good Xavi is or how well his team performed.

So he took over struggling team midseason and kept up the pace with league leaders, that's a job well done tbf.
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Not really. If he was 10 points off Madrid and he is now 15 points off, after 19 (?) league games, that means that keeping that pace you talk about he would be 10 points off the leaders after 38 games.



Also, he has 16 wins in 30 games (53.33%).

Worse numbers than Koeman (58.21%) and also coach with the worst percentage of wins since Charly Resach in 2002 (50%).
 
Since Xavi's first game (against Espanyol), Real Madrid have played 20 games. They've won 15, drawn 3, and lost 2, for a total of 48 points and 2.4 points per game.
Barcelona have played 19 games, winning 13, drawing 4, and losing 2, for a total of 43 points and 2.26 points per game. If they win their game in hand then the difference between them and the league champions over half a season's worth of games is one draw. That's not bad at all, especially considering the high points per game.

It's worth noting that if Barcelona had won every single league game they'd played under Xavi they'd still be behind Real Madrid. 19*3 = 57, 57-48 (RM points in that period) = 9. It's very, very difficult to dig yourself out of a hole like that unless the team you're chasing completely shits the bed.
 
Real Madrid's pace since Xavi took over is 91 points. Barcelona is 86. For the season real madrid is averaging 2.34 ppg, 89 over a season

So yeah, Xavi's barcelona have been on title challenging form, though not quite title winning. Still a massive, massive improvement from Koeman
 
GatoLoco said:
Not really. If he was 10 points off Madrid and he is now 15 points off, after 19 (?) league games, that means that keeping that pace you talk about he would be 10 points off the leaders after 38 games.



Also, he has 16 wins in 30 games (53.33%).

Worse numbers than Koeman (58.21%) and also coach with the worst percentage of wins since Charly Resach in 2002 (50%).
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Then your initial post was wrong. If the stats in the first post was correct then it was job well done as he lost only 3 points on league leaders since his arrival.
 
roonster09 said:
Then your initial post was wrong. If the stats in the first post was correct then it was job well done as he lost only 3 points on league leaders since his arrival.
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The twit was wrong. My post was a question asking whether the numbers were right and they were not.
 
It's frustrating how awful Barca look when one of Pedri/De Jong/Busquets isn't playing. Really hoping a new DM is in the cards for the summer window.
 
Samid said:
Frankfurt, Cadiz, Vallecano. Three losses in a row at home.
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Nah, you can't say it like this. Last I heard was that the game against Frankfurt wasn't a true home game? :devil:
 
GinobiliTheGOAT said:
It's frustrating how awful Barca look when one of Pedri/De Jong/Busquets isn't playing. Really hoping a new DM is in the cards for the summer window.
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It's something they've really struggled with this year every time Pedri especially doesn't play. It was season over for them the minute he was ruled out of the season. They seem to have checked out for the season now.
 
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