Xavi - The manager

Ten Hag beat his Barca with United, deservedly so. He was a shoe-in for Barca, yet Hansi Flick has them flying compared to him. I’m sceptical.

GledTheRed said:
I think we need one of those tbh, Ten Hag didn't moan enough.
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By this logic, we just need a coach with hair. Graeme Souness has hair.

amolbhatia50k said:
Hopefully we aren’t basing our long term football vision around one destroyer DM.
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True, but if our long term vision has changed since Ugarte was brought two months ago, it doesn’t sound so long term anymore.
 
Red Devil 26 said:
Exactly this. Not saying Xavi is the man, but in terms of playing style you have to start somewhere. Our squad is of limited ability and contains a mis-mash of random players that do not complement each other. No manager in the world would be well-equipped to take over our team.

We have to back a new way of playing (personally hope it's one that actually values having good technicians in midfield that can keep the ball) and whichever manager has the personality and the tactical acumen to go execute that should be hired. They have to be given the autonomy, in liaison with the DoF, to bring in the profile of player they want, whilst culling existing players that don't merge with their way of playing. Easier said than done. I know.
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For me Xavi would be a great manager to develop mainoo and amad, so for that alone I would be happy. Obviously on top we should improve our ability to keep and pass the ball around, and show a much higher value in central midfield.
 
Cassidy said:
The pick younger players who can do it
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Our young players have never been trained in tika taka. It's not a system that can be trained overnight. Pep took 3 to 4 years to get it going at City and that was the master at work.
 
Xavi is not ready for this job. He has potential for sure, but needs more experience. That was evident last year.

Also, the media will be all over him. He complains waaaay too much.
 
Not sure if some folks are serious with their criticism or not.

Xavi won the league in his first season. He also accrued more points in that season than almost all seasons by either Real or Barca in the last ten years.

This is clearly not the L that some of you think it is.
 
croadyman said:
Maybe he comes here with a point to prove, just because it didn't work at Barca last season doesn't mean we should write him off completely
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Hes rubbish football in the UCL is why I don’t want him
 
spiriticon said:
Our young players have never been trained in tika taka. It's not a system that can be trained overnight. Pep took 3 to 4 years to get it going at City and that was the master at work.
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You haven’t watched them enough
 
Cassidy said:
You haven’t watched them enough
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Oh right? You believe they can do it as soon as Xavi takes over? Is our academy that brilliant?

I'll trust you on this.

If our academy can already do this, then it makes ETH refusal to play the football he did at Ajax all the more unforgivable.
 
The bloke might be a great manager in the future but he's not ready for a pressure cooker job like this at the moment. And Flick doing much better at Barca with almost the same players doesn't reflect well on him.

God he was an amazing footballer though. I want him to succeed as a manager.
 
Seems nailed on that he will be our next manager. Not sure about this...
 
wr8_utd said:
The one thing you can credit Xavi for is that he isn't all that rigid in his "philosophy" of playing tiki taka etc. The man was more than happy to lump crosses in to Luuk De Jong when he needed late winners.
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Xavi is very rigid.. common misconception is that he is a tiki taka acolyte..he basically won the league with Barca playing like a Mourinho team - 1:0 wins left, right and in the center and sitting back against the big teams.. Xavi is more like Van Gaal than Guardiola..
 
Why so much hate for Xavi? He won a league title over Ancelotti with a disruptive and disorganized Barca board.
 
Giggsy13 said:
Why so much hate for Xavi? He won a league title over Ancelotti with a disruptive and disorganized Barca board.
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Because Barca have improved immeasurably under Flick, almost instantaneously. Pretty rough indictment on Xavi.

Also not that I feel it matters all too much, but the fact he was outcoached by Ten Hag in the Europa league tie probably doesn't help his cause.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
I'm pretty sure that's not the case
It was looking like it for a long time, but they faltered in the end.
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in 2022/23, Xavi achieved 88 points in his title winning debut season. They conceded only 20 goals in the process.

The previous years :-

21/22 - Real - 86 points
20/21 - Atletico - 86 points
19/20 - Real - 87 points
18/19 - Barca - 87 points
17/18 - Barca - 93 points
16/17 - Real - 93 points
15/16 - Barca - 91 points
14/15 - Barca - 94 points

So, at the point in which Xavi won the league, he had the highest point tally going back to 17/18.
 
Xavi won the league but if you watch most of our games during that season, ter Stegen was in the form of his life and there was some voodoo going on with opposition strikers shitting their pants infront of goal.

I will sound the alarm: He would be a complete disaster at United as I said earlier in this thread, complete and utter disaster. His football is ugly and very pragmatic - something you wouldn't expect from a player obsessed with posession and control, certainly not a Barca DNA manager or a manager with a tiki taka style like some here seem to think.

His pros are the respect he commands because, well, he's Xavi the GOAT midfielder and he does give youth a fair chance but other than that, he's at most a side step from ten Hag.

The cons: whinning, let's his emotions get the better of him leading to red cards, lack of accountability (which started to rub off on the players), excuses from weather to the grass length and the nepotism of having his unqualified brother as assistant manager. More often than not he was schooled by any credible manager, including your very own Erik ten Hag.

I guess you have the excuse of the club being a financial mess etc etc. but remember Flick has inherited pretty much the same squad (plus Olmo) and every single player has improved with others (Raphinha) going up multiple levels. Xavi told us not to expect much and whined about the players, Flick entered, zero complaining and we are flying.

As you can tell, the Xavi years really pissed me off. I love him as a club legend, he's one of my all time favourite players and he's the greatest midfielder of all time for me but manager? He just isn't him.
 
Kaos said:
Anyway in case there's any legs to it, this might be of interest:

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I'm a sucker for a possesion based system, so i would love to have him here. i always feel that club is really lacking an underlying philosophy on how we want to play, if the management chooses a possesion based system, who better to coach it than perhaps the greatest midfielder to play that style.

On the negative side, our players are unsuitable to this style, so it would take a few windows to implement.
 
Raiden Shogun said:
Xavi won the league but if you watch most of our games during that season, ter Stegen was in the form of his life and there was some voodoo going on with opposition strikers shitting their pants infront of goal.

I will sound the alarm: He would be a complete disaster at United as I said earlier in this thread, complete and utter disaster. His football is ugly and very pragmatic - something you wouldn't expect from a player obsessed with posession and control, certainly not a Barca DNA manager or a manager with a tiki taka style like some here seem to think.

His pros are the respect he commands because, well, he's Xavi the GOAT midfielder and he does give youth a fair chance but other than that, he's at most a side step from ten Hag.

The cons: whinning, let's his emotions get the better of him leading to red cards, lack of accountability (which started to rub off on the players), excuses from weather to the grass length and the nepotism of having his unqualified brother as assistant manager. More often than not he was schooled by any credible manager, including your very own Erik ten Hag.

I guess you have the excuse of the club being a financial mess etc etc. but remember Flick has inherited pretty much the same squad (plus Olmo) and every single player has improved with others (Raphinha) going up multiple levels. Xavi told us not to expect much and whined about the players, Flick entered, zero complaining and we are flying.

As you can tell, the Xavi years really pissed me off. I love him as a club legend, he's one of my all time favourite players and he's the greatest midfielder of all time for me but manager? He just isn't him.
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Must be great to hate your manager and still win a title. Wish we could somehow spawn that in the next 10 years.
 
Kaos said:
Because Barca have improved immeasurably under Flick, almost instantaneously. Pretty rough indictment on Xavi.

Also not that I feel it matters all too much, but the fact he was outcoached by Ten Hag in the Europa league tie probably doesn't help his cause.
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Perhaps that speaks more to the squad than the quality of the manager. Again Xavi won two major trophies at Barca while Flick who is off to a good start is not guaranteed anything.
 
spiriticon said:
Oh right? You believe they can do it as soon as Xavi takes over? Is our academy that brilliant?

I'll trust you on this.

If our academy can already do this, then it makes ETH refusal to play the football he did at Ajax all the more unforgivable.
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Well he refused to play Amad and Gore so what can I tell you. He sent out left back to Benfica and refused to play Amass what can I tell you. All mentioned players are very good on the ball
 
Hoof the ball said:
in 2022/23, Xavi achieved 88 points in his title winning debut season. They conceded only 20 goals in the process.

The previous years :-

21/22 - Real - 86 points
20/21 - Atletico - 86 points
19/20 - Real - 87 points
18/19 - Barca - 87 points
17/18 - Barca - 93 points
16/17 - Real - 93 points
15/16 - Barca - 91 points
14/15 - Barca - 94 points

So, at the point in which Xavi won the league, he had the highest point tally going back to 17/18.
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If you add 23/24 which Real Madrid won with 95 points then that means 5 of the last 10 seasons had a maximum point tally higher than 88.

Not saying he did badly or anything. But there was a period where it looked possible they'd get 95+ points and shatter the league's defensive record. But in the last 10 games of the season they conceded 11 goals, lost 4 games, and drew 1, finally ending with a point tally that was quite close to the previous four champions.
 
Sanchez7 said:
I'm a sucker for a possesion based system, so i would love to have him here. i always feel that club is really lacking an underlying philosophy on how we want to play, if the management chooses a possesion based system, who better to coach it than perhaps the greatest midfielder to play that style.

On the negative side, our players are unsuitable to this style, so it would take a few windows to implement.
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Is it that impossible ? Case, Eriksen and Mount are probably set to leave in upcoming windows anyway, as a no future value.
 
Raiden Shogun said:
Xavi won the league but if you watch most of our games during that season, ter Stegen was in the form of his life and there was some voodoo going on with opposition strikers shitting their pants infront of goal.

I will sound the alarm: He would be a complete disaster at United as I said earlier in this thread, complete and utter disaster. His football is ugly and very pragmatic - something you wouldn't expect from a player obsessed with posession and control, certainly not a Barca DNA manager or a manager with a tiki taka style like some here seem to think.

His pros are the respect he commands because, well, he's Xavi the GOAT midfielder and he does give youth a fair chance but other than that, he's at most a side step from ten Hag.

The cons: whinning, let's his emotions get the better of him leading to red cards, lack of accountability (which started to rub off on the players), excuses from weather to the grass length and the nepotism of having his unqualified brother as assistant manager. More often than not he was schooled by any credible manager, including your very own Erik ten Hag.

I guess you have the excuse of the club being a financial mess etc etc. but remember Flick has inherited pretty much the same squad (plus Olmo) and every single player has improved with others (Raphinha) going up multiple levels. Xavi told us not to expect much and whined about the players, Flick entered, zero complaining and we are flying.

As you can tell, the Xavi years really pissed me off. I love him as a club legend, he's one of my all time favourite players and he's the greatest midfielder of all time for me but manager? He just isn't him.
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Agree entirely.

I do not want Xavi anywhere near this club. He’d be 1 level above from Southgate for me.

You might be able to confirm as well…on top of everything else you’ve highlighted. But apparently he’s not a very good man manager. This united squad needs a brilliant communicator. From what I’ve hard, Xavi is far from that guy

Hansi Flick is actually embarassing Xavi presently. I liken it to the Lampard, Rooneys and Gerrards getting jobs based purely on name and being brilliant players. But ultimately, pretty poor managers
 
Pughnichi said:
Agree entirely.

I do not want Xavi anywhere near this club. He’d be 1 level above from Southgate for me.

You might be able to confirm as well…on top of everything else you’ve highlighted. But apparently he’s not a very good man manager. This united squad needs a brilliant communicator. From what I’ve hard, Xavi is far from that guy

Hansi Flick is actually embarassing Xavi presently. I liken it to the Lampard, Rooneys and Gerrards getting jobs based purely on name and being brilliant players. But ultimately, pretty poor managers
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Pretty poor is generous :lol:
 
And then Fraser Forster. I mean wtf....even David James was a better keeper and he wasn't that special.
 
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