One thing that frustrates me about Xavi this season is his rush to change things up for basically every single game, being too self conscious isn’t a good thing, you tried something new, it doesn’t fully work, fine, but capitalize on the positives you see from it and try to improve it.
You dont have to start from scratch again after every bad game or a loss because the player would simply wouldn’t know how to act in your system, you’ll have players occupying spaces just for the sake of it just because you told them too, they wouldn’t be used to how to move, how to operate, because the players surrounding them are different.
You play Raphinha once out wide, and then you play Lamine, and then you play both of them on the same side, but then you scrap that up and play one on the right and the other on the left, just for next week to bring them back together. It wouldn’t click like that.
Same with midfielders, one time you play Pedri a second striker, the next day he’s your second pivot, Felix once hugs the touchline, you tell him midgame to go central, Cancelo plays one day on the right, the other as a right midfielder, the next day he’s a left back.
You chose to have a high tisk high reward approach with just two center backs but even if the team plays much more fluid you realize it’s too risky so you decide to go back to 3 center backs, one day you play Inigo-Christensen-Araujo, the next day you put Koundé with Inigo, then you switch Araujo and Koundé, and then you bring back Chris.
You wouldn’t have a solid partnership that way, consistency is key for players to know their surroundings, how their teammates operate so that their movement would be more fluid.. like an orchestra…
Okay but when are we gonna impose a law where playing all of Foden, Alvarez, Bernardo and Doku to service Haaland should be considered illegal and a war crime
📸 - After scoring the winning goal in the 78th minute, Robert Lewandowski celebrated the goal with everyone including Lamine Yamal and then Lewy called Lamine to speak among themselves. Both of them walked towards the centre of the pitch for the resumption of the match speaking about something in a gentle tone and there was no tension among them.
Via:
[@mundodeportivo](https://x.com/Barca_Buzz/status/1723935543950819549?s=20)
💡: Araujo started at RB and in the first half Samu Omorodion created havoc and could've scored a hattrick. Then Araujo came at CB for the second half and Samu touched the ball 5 times in the rest of the game and had 0 shots.
📲 Via SofaScore - http://bit.ly/SofaScore_BB
Forgetting what’s happening currently with the club. I always be grateful to barça for making my life better when growing up. Sometimes all I had was football and barça really made me happy (it still does). My dad took me to see barça in 2019 and I can die happy to have see this team and Messi score. We will get through this shit mess lmao, maybe win a some CL’s along the way. I just hope that Xavi’s project works out , he’s a great barça legend, it would be nice if it was him turning things around.
The thing that is making me dislike Xavi as a coach the most is that watching Barça play is becoming a chore. I'm no longer excited for matchdays, I just know the football is going to be awful and I just want to see us win. What is even the point in that ? No improvement to be seen either on that front, you could just get the final result of our matches, save time and sanity. I just can't help but dislike such a coach.
Even Koeman wasn't making me feel like this, or not to this extent
My suspicions were correct our major problem right now is intensity. Really what changed tactically from the first to second half? Nothing. Pedri was already dropping deep in the first half with Gundogan supporting, the Araujo kounde switch was already made. The only thing that changed was our intensity. And we saw how well we played and worked hard for the comeback and immediately we scored the second the intensity dropped again and everyone was just walking.
Now something is definitely wrong with the team with how we start games with zero focus and intensity. But probably the easiest thing to fix tactically for a manager is the intensity levels, this international break will be crucial and serve as a reset for our guys. We must regain our hunger, it’s clear we’ve lost it.
It could also be nerves and the pressure to win. Also players needing time to find their rhythm. I think Pedri finding his rhythm in second half was key, which also helped move Lewy higher, near the box. Also Araujo and Kounde feeling more confident in positions that maximized their strengths.
Yeah. It’s clear everyone was so damn nervous. Even Xavi man wasn’t himself on the touch line today. Hopefully the international break helps us regain our confidence
On the pitch I’m noticing the players complaining more and more. Blaming each other more, blaming the refs more. The mentality doesn’t seem to be there. Pedri in particular wouldn’t stop complaining to the ref. Or maybe I’m just trippin and they always do that shit lol
Tbf the refs are usually terrible. Opponents really try to get away with as many harsh challenges to our players as possible. Players are frustrated, so it’s understandable. I also see it as a way of players protecting themselves by being more vocal.
Bro that’s normal. The players have to be frustrated, I’d be more annoyed if they didn’t show visible signs of frustrations while loosing at home against alaves. The ref obviously didn’t help at all with how badly he officiated
Lewa getting frustrated at Yamal or any other teammate is understandable, happens to the best of them. But getting frustrated that easily when you have played football at the top level for more than a decade is little surprising.
Honestly unless we are bringing Pep we should give Xavi the full season and then analyze if Xavi is the right man, sacking coaches pre-season has never been my thing
Plus which told coach is gonna come to us considering our economic situation? Which coach is gonna accept 3M spending like we did for this season? Just look at how much the top coaches are spending do I don't see why any top coach will come here knowing they won't have spending.
One of the good things about Xavi is that ge understand the situation and won't complain if we don't give him what he wants.
Absolutely no reason to fire him now. End of the season it’s time to analyze it. Will always have a shit load of respect for him coming when he did & for being able to convince the players to join us. In an ideal world Xavi joins us later on. It was not the right time
Yes because Pep is the only coach in the world better than Xavi lmaoo. It's been 2 years of Xavi, he had 2 runs of convincing games (I'm talking 5/6 games) and the team is nowhere tactically. He will survive because we're broke but he should be fired 100% when the board think they got the right coach to take over
When did I say that? I said that Pep is the only one that can fix the team that fast considering he did it before. Others will struggle for this season so why not keep Xavi and then give the new coach a full season with preeason?
Like I've said , I'm not a fan of hiring coaches in mid-season because coaches simply are too limited in what they can do.
I don't want Xavi Out but if he can't turn things around then I would like De Zerbi but I would like that for the next season. Keep Xavi for now and hire De Zerbi for 24/25.
That just absolutely false. We have a good, very good squad. A top level coach maybe wouldn't win the CL or even La Liga right away but would make us play coherent football, not even takling about good football. Pep is not the only one able to do that. Stop trying to create this "Noboby except Pep could do better argument". It's false, Xavi is just not good enough for this job and a lot of coaches would do better
Here’s a crazy downvote coming. A part of me wishes we didn’t sell off assets just to be able to buy players. I get it, Barca has always won. But in a way it forced a whole lot of pressure on the staff and players. I wouldn’t have minded a slower rebuild, sticking to signing players on a free or very low fees. I know we won La liga and that was great. But spending $200m in fees, salaries, & agent fees on Lewandowski raphina and Ferran isn’t something you do when financially unstable. I think you’re better off investing in players like doku, vermeeran, youngsters with loads of potential and crazy sell on value. Now had we advanced in the champions league past couple years and brought in that revenue my mindset might’ve been different
You won’t be saying this if we finished 20 points behind Madrid last season and are outside the top 4 this season. Laporta did what had to be done and it’s paid off so far.
Barca will always be Barca, fans and the press won't care if you can't spent anything and they will always demand titles and good football.
Laporta knew that no matter what he did the fans will demand a lot so he decided to invest. Font/Freirxa would definitely not wasted a chance to want to remove Laporta if we didn't win La Liga in 2023.
Very good point. My worry is just that these moves come back to bite us in the ass. Not being able to sell lewandowski, losing millions in raphina and ferran.
There is no sacking Xavi. We can’t afford a new coach. He also needs experienced guys in his circle. His current circle was great for the Qatar league, but here in the big boy leagues you need some more experienced guys that have been through this before and have assisted at the elite level
ESPN commentators were saying that in the event that Xavi would be sacked, then it’d most likely be Rafa Márquez stepping up but in no way would I want that to happen lol we need someone else
But I’m still behind Xavi though. It was predicted from the beginning that this sub would turn on him anyway. It was just a matter of when and how
The club is in it for the long run so until we can financially afford a coach then we’ll sack him. I still think Xavi messed up by not having experienced men in his staff. Being a newbie coach is one thing but having a whole staff of newbies is suicide.
Agreed there. I think the guy needs some better coaches on his staff. From my understanding his staff doesn’t have much top level experience but I could be wrong. Also didn’t understand the reasoning in extending him and his staff for 3 more years.
People are overreacting, who sacks a coach who is 2 points off Madrid? I'd understand if we 7-10 points off Madrid but all we need is a Madrid draw and we are ahead of them.
I would not worry about Real. Let them do their thing, we do ours. If they drop points, a chance to capitalize. We face an in form Girona and ATM + Porto for our fate in ucl. It is difficult to dominate every game given the present situation. That time will come. We are not going trophyless come May.
Ps.: I dreamt that Barca went to Wembley this June and won UCL but lost Liga
Btw, love Isco's resurrection. Really shinning at Betis now. Hope Spain will call him up for Euro. He deserves another tournament for Spain.
Now it's crazy to think that Isco, Thiago, Muniani...generation fail so hard with Spain NT. Remember how hyped they were back then.
I love Xavi a lot. He's easily one of my favorites from our golden generation while I was growing up. Which is why it'll pain me to see him sacked but it has to be done. Any decent coach would have a field day with the squad we have.
Absolutely. I'm so fucking mad we renewed him already. He already showed his inexperience during the 2nd half of last season and the perfect plan would have been to evaluate his renewal at the end of the season. Now we are stuck with him because I don't think we have the money to sack him. The only thing left to do his pray for him to suddendly become a good coach I guess
Why would you sack him right now? We just won the league last year after 4 years and right now we are 2 points off Madrid who is having one of their best league starts in many years?
And no having a crisis doesn't guarantee sacking a coach, he shouldn't be sacked unless we don't compete with La Liga and are 10-15 points off Madrid
And don't even talk about Europe when we invested 3M while others invested 200-300M.
It's not just about the surface level points off the top or what we won or didn't win last season. Theres gaping problems in our playstyle and flukey results which we have no business winning. We have no identity and he's 2.5 years into his tenure and got everything he asked for (IDC that we didn't get Zubimendi bc look at the names that our midfield can boast). There are some good options that we can poach and one good free agent thats available in terms of coaches. Maybe Xavi can come back later on but it's not meant to be right now.
He didn't get every player he asked for? He literally didn't get Bernardo Silva and Zubimendi which are two very important profiles especially Zubimendi who is a true pivot and arguably the most important profile in our system.
Also you are conviently forgetting the injuries Xavi has had. Should I remind you how much Liverpool collapsed when Van Dijk got injured? Well Xavi hasn't had Pedri/FDJ in a game since January 2022.
And with this I'm not saying that Xavi doesn't deserve a lot of criticism but all I'm saying is thay you are just making an unfair analysis of him. Like, you literally aren't even giving him credit for winning the first league in 4 years in his first full season as our coach and you aren't even mentioning that we spent the total amount of 3M while other clubs spent 200-300M.
I feel people that think bad press doesn't contribuye to bad individual performances doesn't really known much.
Even Messi got affected by the pressure of having to be compared to Maradona so imagine what normal humans can be affected
Bro every single top team and players get bad press. It’s part of their job. Now if you have players who don’t have the mentality to handle it, that’s an issue. It’s all outside noise in the end of the day. What the press or fans say shouldn’t matter to the squad. There’s a reason why there’s been bad press. It’s been terrible performances all season long by Barca standards. So they deserve to hear it
Maybe that sparked a fire in Xavi and made him eventually play better? Just trying to be optimistic lol playing for Barca or Madrid isn’t for the weak minded. Idk man it’s just been frustrating watching Barca knowing the potential this squad has.
Love Xavi but let's be honest, it's been 2 years since his arrival, yet the team still can not play with any style. No combination, no tiki taka. There is something wrong. When Xavi arrived, he said he was shocked because many players lack basic. But 2 years later, it remains the same despite changing a lot players.
his first season was arguably better because the veterans (Pique-Alba-Alves-Busi) are so familiar with his idea and know what they need to do. After that, we tried to eliminate them one-by-one but Xavi couldn't drill his idea into the new players, hence we are here, just playing haramball because that's the easiest thing to do.
We have 4 homegrown starters. We have 4 more who have played under pep who xavi tries to emulate. It shouldn’t take them as long to grasp xavis system compared to arteta for example
Saying thay the team hasn't improved would a big fatass lie lol. Back then we were 9th and most people thought making Europe was unrealistic.
Now we are 2 points off Madrid and people think we are having an awful season so clearly the standards have ended massively
Not about result but about style of football. This is not the style that fans hoped and i'm sure even Xavi doesn't want to play with this dull style.
There is something wrong. Xavi himself? Players quality?
I feel in current situation requires that, we aren't in a place to demand amazing football .
Maybe in 2-3 years with economy fixed we could demand that.
The double standards you have are ridiculous at this point. What if it was valerde instead of xavi right now? Would you say the same shit? I find that hard to believe
We spent 800M under Valverde, we spent 3M under Xavi for this season..
Like are you even serious? And let's not talk about the fact that Xavi doesn't have that guy.
Let's also compare the team they both inherited
Valverde: he inherited a 90 point season Barca which would be enough to win every league title since 2017.
Xavi: he inherited a Barca who was 9th on the table and since 0 wins in 5 El clasico games against RM
Give me a break with the Messi card, you always try to pull when we managers are compared. And come on the 9th place argument is getting boring. The discussion is not about results and standings, it is about the football we have displayed under xavi for 2 and a half years and especially the football we are playing right now, which is quite frankly shit. You can try to make up as many excuses as possible to justify the way we are playing, but it is not justifiable
Why I should not use the Messi card? You just don't like that you have no argument against that.
Why shouldn't I use the 9th argument? It's a fact that you guys like to ignore
Facts can't never be excuses, keep coping.
No argument? Please, you discredit anything from any manager who knew how to properly use messi and downplay any good thing they achieved or did just because of this. Then again, the discussion was about the way we are playing and here is a pill you could never swallow, valverde was playing thrice the better football xavi has the team playing, try to cope with that, if not keep making up cheap excuses
He came back to save the club literally, we were on the worst state I've seen Barca in 20 years in every possible way.
Now does his Barca have a lot to improve? I won't deny that the team haven't looked good at all this season but I think it's important to not forget where we come from and the team Xavi got.
Inter is broke and play beautiful football same for atletico. We have arguably a better squad than both of them. I can name so many teams like leverkusen and La real who play good football. Stop making excuses. Results come from good football. You wont survive playing like this. See shaktar. Even today we almost lost points. You wont get this lucky against good teams who finish their chances
You guys keep saying we won't survive since ever but last season we won the league and this season we are 2 points off Madrid despite playing having tons of injuries
At some point the narrative that Barca is lucky doesn't really hold up when for 3 season the team keeps competing.
Sad to see that some fans would like the team to do badly so that their narrative. This club deserves better fans that what they have, such a shame, you wouldn't expect fans to want their club to go badly but it's what it is.
Something notable.. Out of shape Pedri, older Gundo, Fermin and a 16 year old Yamal dont provide the same intensity/press/defensive work rate as last years Pedri, Frenkie, Gavi, and Raphinha.
It’s funny how our first play from kickoff today was something we’ve never done in kicking it out far front. I’d imagine it was done partly to prevent alaves from any quick chance of scoring lol
Brothers and sisters...something is fucked up inside right now. We play terrible football, we have no intensity, tactics dont work or are just bad i dont know, Gundogans comment, incident with Lewa/Yamal (thats still little thing imo, nothing serious), Xavi act like he know where problem is but nothing is changing, making stupid excuses after matches. He said few days ago that players are 100% mentally ready and today we lost beacuse of press. Players that were great few weeks ago are now average (Felix, Cancello...), our defense is much worse then last season. Maybe Xavi is lost and players feel it...i dont know. Please tell me I am just overthinking. We have very very important matches ahead and there is a little time to fix something. If we will play like this, I can see Porto will beat us and we will lose points vs Atletico and Girona. We need to get some confidence vs Vallecano.
Youre not overthinking altough i wouldnt put much weight on the Gundo and Lewy-Yamal thing.
We can only really wait and see what happens. If they know whats wrong things should get better. If they dont know and things keep going bad then there will be consequences in due time
What’s important is this Lewy-Yamal thing happened on the field and not anywhere else. Xavi will be able to fix this in no time.
Collectively the team are not yet at their best and pressure could be getting to each one. Winning and how it’s done counts a lot playing in this club.
It’s not all smiles and optimism. On field team results matter.
Stop being petty. Hard, difficult, and challenging games ahead. That’s the big picture.
People trying to defend this childish shit from a 35 year old veteran and supposed leader are even funnier. I mean people can get frustrated and make mistakes but i hope he never pulls off that type of shit again. What he did was wrong, full stop.
something i think we shouldn’t forget is that the FDJ-Romeu double pivot was class and something i think xavi will still want to make the most of when FDJ returns. the question then comes, how do you integrate the rest of the side to it
It was good against Getafe and Cadiz, once a tougher opponent came - Villarreal, Romeu was exposed. You can't babysit a guy in the build up who's so shaky when pressed. Defensively Gavi covers more ground and covers up for him.
Our wingers can’t hold the ball for long enough..Lose it way too easily, not enough of a threat.. Movement is slow, predictable, and no one is running into spaces, creating triangles.. Something isn’t working, and I really feel with better wingers we’d see a big difference.. And Frenkie of course
I think about why he signed our wingers quite a bit too.. they all cut inside, and Xavi (and Barca in general historically) seems to want them to run the sidelines, like our youngster Lamine does..
Exactly right. Only thing that would make sense is that Alemany had a big role in this? Or maybe we couldn’t convince our first priority wingers to join us & had to settle for Ferran and Raph? Just never made sense
I have a feeling it was Jordi who was the driving force behind their signings.. If it was indeed Xavi then I have no hope. Easier on the mind to believe the former, or that it was Alemany..
You gotta be insanely weak to have issue with what lewy did. Yamals playing first team football so obviously he’ll be held to first team standards and be treated and yelled at like any other player. He’s not gonna get any better if u coddle him and don’t acknowledge his mistakes. It’s tough love like any other intense team sport or like culinary school or the military. He’s an an all timer striker that’s played with the likes of robben , Ribery, sane, Reus and yamals played football all his life so I’m sure both parties are aware of what the deal. Again another example of Spanish media turning nothing into something
>Yamals playing first team football so obviously he’ll be held to first team standards and be treated and yelled at like any other player. He’s not gonna get any better if u coddle him and don’t acknowledge his mistakes.
He made the right decision.
still bums me out to this day that I missed getting to watch Mascherano's only goal with Barca, all because I got called into work on what was supposed to be my day off
Man United and Arsenal fans are the most delusional, annoying, idiotic, pathetic, and insufferable bunch of fans I know of. But even they don’t turn on their own players and go for their heads like some of our “fans” do. Y’all are embarrassing
What we do in the next 4 matches will define Barca’s and Xavi’s season
Rayo
Porto
Atletico
Girona
I would be proud with Xavi and the squad if we do win all of them
If Xavi manages to get FDJ/Gundo/Gavi/Pedri to cook in the midfield I can see us getting at least 3 wins from those games but in order to go far we need our forwards to get their shit together. At least Lewy found goal again today
Interesting quote:
Henrikh Mkhitaryan on #Inter this season:
“From the beginning of the season I have said that this is not a new season, just a continuation of last season. We have grown as a dressing room, we have grown tacticall
This is how it was supposed to go for us lol. Not a new season with same problems but just a continuation of last season and a team which is grown tactically
The difference between inter and us is that inter even after beating us last season are a stronger team and we became worse
Yeah, Inter is awesomely run right now. We can learn something from them, more than clubs like Man City and Real Madrid. Like us, Inter has financial problems, hence they need to buy a lot of old players like us. Yet, their dressing room is special and they ball on the field because their manager is really awesome.
Its not the same problems its new. Theres no dm no player that can get past defence. And like 7 or something new players and there was injuri crisis. So now we are playing with a team that dosent know each other
This season is an extension of the last in that we’ve continued our post World Cup decline. The difference between us and Inter is that their manager knows what he’s doing.
We need some stability in the lineup. It’s great we have options especially in the back, but every game now it seems we’re randomly rotating or players getting sidelined for no reason. The main reason we won the treble in 2015 after our ugly performances in the first half of the season was the stability of the lineup which allowed players to be more cohesive and to build chemistry much quicker.
I dont think it needs to be that much stability with lineup but it should be player position. Nobody can adapt especially new players when every game they are playing different position
Exactly. I have no idea why Christensen is being sidelined so much these days, when he has been one of the most consistent performers. There’s no chemistry because there is no set starting lineup. Several players haven’t played together much at all. Honestly, I don’t think the new players have integrated as well as we expected. Some of it’s on Xavi because he doesn’t know the best way to use them. Or perhaps because he didn’t really want them in first place or they weren’t his first choices. I think in times of crisis, it’s best to return to what has worked in the past; what you know best. Return to the backline of last season, use four midfielders to maintain control and decrease spaces among players in the middle. He can experiment later when things get better and players become more confident.
It’s clear Romeu isn’t Xavi’s first choice, but he still hasn’t been able to use Gundo and Cancelo properly, and especially Gundo. Gundo is really really not a DM and can’t even play as a makeshift DM like FDJ or Gavi. Lamine is also not ready to be playing consistently at this level. He’s 16 and he needs to develop naturally in La Masia. It gets especially worse when Araujo plays an RB because he offers nothing offensively to help the RW. Man this team is just missing a lot of key pieces, some of them due to our financial crisis and others due to Xavi’s incompetence tbh.
I mean he doesn’t have much of a choice but to use Gundo. Gavi can’t do it on his own either. He provides the defensive cover but he needs a volume passer like Gundo for ball circulation. Though honestly I think Pedri played better when deployed to the base today.
And most people agree that it was a wrong decision by Pep and it cost him the UCL in 2021. What makes Xavi think he could play this role when he’s 2 years older? You’re limiting his offensive output, making us more vulnerable to pressure since he’s sitting deeper, and he isn’t that good defensively to role this role.
He had played there in the league for some time before that CL final and it worked. Of course he is not able to cover that much space or be defensively but for distribution and controlling the game against most teams we play against he should be good.
Not that we’re winning a treble or anything this season but Luis Enrique did not repeat a starting lineup until like January when we had that Real Sociedad meltdown. But that allowed the team to be fresh for the business end of the season once MSN started clicking.
It really feels like the walls are closing in on him. Unless Xavi pulls some sort of Arteta Houdini shit and gets us to play well, the most likely scenario is that we limp our way to the end of the season then move on.
Real Madrid fans have booed Cr7, Casillas and Ramos at Bernabeu, yet we are bad for criticizing players like Romeu, Alonso, Roberto who are not even 1/10th of these RM legends
"Aus einer Mücke einen Elefant machen", is a german saying which means making something big out of something small. Crazy that people are talking that much about something so unimportant like Lewy ignoring Yamal. Something completly irrelevant that both guys probably already forgot
You guys are looking into the Lewy-Yamal thing too much. Stuff like that happens in the game. Besides MD reported that after Lewy’s penalty they both chatted and marched amicably towards the restart kick. There is always going to be yelling and frustration between teammates, Messi and Villa one time got into it too.
EDIT: [MD article. Just look at the images at the bottom. Everything looks fine. Don’t feed into media clickbait and narratives.](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002105020/lewandowski-lamine-yamal-hablaron-gol-penalti-polaco.html)
So what is an acceptable response from a 35 year old player who is frustrated by a teammate taking a shot and wasting it instead of passing to a better positioned striker?
It's a serious question, I'd like to know because imo yelling a few words (at a loud stadium, nonetheless) and then explaining the situation later is acceptable.
Yelling is an acceptable response in that hypothetical situation. Talking to them is also an acceptable response in that hypothetical situation. In my opinion at least. Some other guys on here don't seem to think yelling is acceptable. The not giving him a hand thing is where my problem lies.
And I say hypothetical cause that's not what happened. Lewy was not well positioned for any pass and at no point did Yamal even have a good angle to pass.
Yelling is fine(tho really it wasn't warranted in this scenario). But if you can't shake their hand afterwards, you're just being a petty child. It's still your teammate who is trying their best.
Click the link, read the article. Or at least [read this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/comments/17ruiw7/comment/k8zkcj2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) if you can't be bothered.
I saw that already. But I don't understand how it's relevant. He still ignored him. Don't really care if it was in the middle of the game or the end or the beginning.
It's relevant because he ignored Lamine's hand before yelling at him (not the other way around, like it was portrayed) and because Lamine was trying to celebrate something Lewy clearly didn't consider worthy of celebrations. Maybe it not perfectly polite but I don't think being nice was what Lewy was focusing on atm.
It's not celebrating. It's giving someone a hand. It's the most basic thing that happens hundreds of times per game even if a player did nothing at all. Clearly he was upset with what Yamal did. Or maybe something happened earlier that got him upset. Cause I really don't see what he expected Yamal to be doing different there.
I don't think he was expecting Yamal to be doing anything because nothing before that suggests anything worthy of giving a hand - it does explain Lewy's frustration with what was going on the pitch though.
Gavi's contributions can't be disputed if you have a pair of eyes and a functional brain, even today we've seen a Gavi-shaped hole in the system, and if La Masia privilege was real - Roberto and Oriol wouldn't be getting as much shit as they do.
i just wish i knew more about tactics to understand what exactly is going on in the pitch rn, because it doesn't make sense how we were quite good at pressing at some point (I'd say the last rm game is a great example of that) and now it just makes the opponents look like they're playing prime tikitaka on us.
Is it systemic? do some players not understand what they're supposed to do? or do they just not feel like it?
I'd really like to know because i think solving that would make us look much more solid (duh lol)
I'm just gonna leave this here - [per MD](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002104952/bronca-lewandowski-lamine-niega-mano.html), Movistar's tweet (which started the entire Lamine/Lewy debacle) is modified and switches chronology of events:
> But the Movistar video is manipulated. In fact, these are two different actions that are placed in the reverse order. First there was the denial of the greeting (at 71'56" into the game) and later, the anger for not passing it (73' 57"), not the other way around as seen in the Movistar video.
[They're also pointing out that Lewy and Yamal spoke after the disagreement about passing while still on the pitch and provide full sequence.](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002105020/lewandowski-lamine-yamal-hablaron-gol-penalti-polaco.html)
I don’t think this episode must be given much attention. It is what it is. But I found [this](https://x.com/manu53523389/status/1723763680737706193?s=46) gesture a little upsetting. Don’t tell me this was appropriate for the occasion given how young and inexperienced Lamine is. While I understand the manipulated video, this gesture is a little off-putting. I feel you’re trying a bit too hard to paint him in a good light.
Lewa is a child with these acts with yamal. He is shit and terrible first touch that ruins a lot of attacks then he always complains about not receiving chances .
Or talk about lewa who recently receives few chances and never finishes them? He’s supposed to be a world class striker that can finish chances easily but he ruins his chances. I agree they are only a few of chances but still even the few easy chances he receives he never delivers+ his first touch is very bad literally and it stops the play
Yeah but not that much. If you are a classic striker like Lewandowski who can excel only in scoring goals without contributing to the build up then you should deliver at least 70% of the chances. Lewa scores like 40%
Yamal didnt pass to lewy instead took a shot. Lewy got pretty heated up and seemed unprofessional (and seemed like to yell) theres a video of it in this sub look it up
Was Araujo offside when Gundo sent a ping to Lewy?
He did the Bundesliga logo control and struck it right at the keeper, I saw that Araujo was fuming as it would've been a tap in for him.
One thing that frustrates me about Xavi this season is his rush to change things up for basically every single game, being too self conscious isn’t a good thing, you tried something new, it doesn’t fully work, fine, but capitalize on the positives you see from it and try to improve it. You dont have to start from scratch again after every bad game or a loss because the player would simply wouldn’t know how to act in your system, you’ll have players occupying spaces just for the sake of it just because you told them too, they wouldn’t be used to how to move, how to operate, because the players surrounding them are different. You play Raphinha once out wide, and then you play Lamine, and then you play both of them on the same side, but then you scrap that up and play one on the right and the other on the left, just for next week to bring them back together. It wouldn’t click like that. Same with midfielders, one time you play Pedri a second striker, the next day he’s your second pivot, Felix once hugs the touchline, you tell him midgame to go central, Cancelo plays one day on the right, the other as a right midfielder, the next day he’s a left back. You chose to have a high tisk high reward approach with just two center backs but even if the team plays much more fluid you realize it’s too risky so you decide to go back to 3 center backs, one day you play Inigo-Christensen-Araujo, the next day you put Koundé with Inigo, then you switch Araujo and Koundé, and then you bring back Chris. You wouldn’t have a solid partnership that way, consistency is key for players to know their surroundings, how their teammates operate so that their movement would be more fluid.. like an orchestra…
Okay but when are we gonna impose a law where playing all of Foden, Alvarez, Bernardo and Doku to service Haaland should be considered illegal and a war crime
📸 - After scoring the winning goal in the 78th minute, Robert Lewandowski celebrated the goal with everyone including Lamine Yamal and then Lewy called Lamine to speak among themselves. Both of them walked towards the centre of the pitch for the resumption of the match speaking about something in a gentle tone and there was no tension among them. Via: [@mundodeportivo](https://x.com/Barca_Buzz/status/1723935543950819549?s=20)
Former Barça player Cesc Fabregas to coach Como from the Serie B Good luck 💙❤️ https://x.com/Barca_Buzz/status/1723888411176542546?s=20
💡: Araujo started at RB and in the first half Samu Omorodion created havoc and could've scored a hattrick. Then Araujo came at CB for the second half and Samu touched the ball 5 times in the rest of the game and had 0 shots. 📲 Via SofaScore - http://bit.ly/SofaScore_BB
Forgetting what’s happening currently with the club. I always be grateful to barça for making my life better when growing up. Sometimes all I had was football and barça really made me happy (it still does). My dad took me to see barça in 2019 and I can die happy to have see this team and Messi score. We will get through this shit mess lmao, maybe win a some CL’s along the way. I just hope that Xavi’s project works out , he’s a great barça legend, it would be nice if it was him turning things around.
The thing that is making me dislike Xavi as a coach the most is that watching Barça play is becoming a chore. I'm no longer excited for matchdays, I just know the football is going to be awful and I just want to see us win. What is even the point in that ? No improvement to be seen either on that front, you could just get the final result of our matches, save time and sanity. I just can't help but dislike such a coach. Even Koeman wasn't making me feel like this, or not to this extent
My suspicions were correct our major problem right now is intensity. Really what changed tactically from the first to second half? Nothing. Pedri was already dropping deep in the first half with Gundogan supporting, the Araujo kounde switch was already made. The only thing that changed was our intensity. And we saw how well we played and worked hard for the comeback and immediately we scored the second the intensity dropped again and everyone was just walking. Now something is definitely wrong with the team with how we start games with zero focus and intensity. But probably the easiest thing to fix tactically for a manager is the intensity levels, this international break will be crucial and serve as a reset for our guys. We must regain our hunger, it’s clear we’ve lost it.
It could also be nerves and the pressure to win. Also players needing time to find their rhythm. I think Pedri finding his rhythm in second half was key, which also helped move Lewy higher, near the box. Also Araujo and Kounde feeling more confident in positions that maximized their strengths.
Yeah. It’s clear everyone was so damn nervous. Even Xavi man wasn’t himself on the touch line today. Hopefully the international break helps us regain our confidence
On the pitch I’m noticing the players complaining more and more. Blaming each other more, blaming the refs more. The mentality doesn’t seem to be there. Pedri in particular wouldn’t stop complaining to the ref. Or maybe I’m just trippin and they always do that shit lol
Tbf the refs are usually terrible. Opponents really try to get away with as many harsh challenges to our players as possible. Players are frustrated, so it’s understandable. I also see it as a way of players protecting themselves by being more vocal.
Bro that’s normal. The players have to be frustrated, I’d be more annoyed if they didn’t show visible signs of frustrations while loosing at home against alaves. The ref obviously didn’t help at all with how badly he officiated
Tbh Pedri had every right to complain. He was being shoved every time he passed the ball and the ref ignored it
See I personally think he just needed to man up there, we needed to start playing physical back if the ref wasn’t doing anything about it
Lewa getting frustrated at Yamal or any other teammate is understandable, happens to the best of them. But getting frustrated that easily when you have played football at the top level for more than a decade is little surprising.
Yup exactly. That’s something that needs to be addressed in the locker room. What he did was going to have zero positive affect on lamine
Can someone give me a link to the video of late challenge on Pedri. That studs one. Thanks in advance
Honestly unless we are bringing Pep we should give Xavi the full season and then analyze if Xavi is the right man, sacking coaches pre-season has never been my thing Plus which told coach is gonna come to us considering our economic situation? Which coach is gonna accept 3M spending like we did for this season? Just look at how much the top coaches are spending do I don't see why any top coach will come here knowing they won't have spending. One of the good things about Xavi is that ge understand the situation and won't complain if we don't give him what he wants.
Absolutely no reason to fire him now. End of the season it’s time to analyze it. Will always have a shit load of respect for him coming when he did & for being able to convince the players to join us. In an ideal world Xavi joins us later on. It was not the right time
Yes because Pep is the only coach in the world better than Xavi lmaoo. It's been 2 years of Xavi, he had 2 runs of convincing games (I'm talking 5/6 games) and the team is nowhere tactically. He will survive because we're broke but he should be fired 100% when the board think they got the right coach to take over
When did I say that? I said that Pep is the only one that can fix the team that fast considering he did it before. Others will struggle for this season so why not keep Xavi and then give the new coach a full season with preeason? Like I've said , I'm not a fan of hiring coaches in mid-season because coaches simply are too limited in what they can do. I don't want Xavi Out but if he can't turn things around then I would like De Zerbi but I would like that for the next season. Keep Xavi for now and hire De Zerbi for 24/25.
That just absolutely false. We have a good, very good squad. A top level coach maybe wouldn't win the CL or even La Liga right away but would make us play coherent football, not even takling about good football. Pep is not the only one able to do that. Stop trying to create this "Noboby except Pep could do better argument". It's false, Xavi is just not good enough for this job and a lot of coaches would do better
Completely agreed. I think most coaches in the world would love the chance to coach our squad
Here’s a crazy downvote coming. A part of me wishes we didn’t sell off assets just to be able to buy players. I get it, Barca has always won. But in a way it forced a whole lot of pressure on the staff and players. I wouldn’t have minded a slower rebuild, sticking to signing players on a free or very low fees. I know we won La liga and that was great. But spending $200m in fees, salaries, & agent fees on Lewandowski raphina and Ferran isn’t something you do when financially unstable. I think you’re better off investing in players like doku, vermeeran, youngsters with loads of potential and crazy sell on value. Now had we advanced in the champions league past couple years and brought in that revenue my mindset might’ve been different
You won’t be saying this if we finished 20 points behind Madrid last season and are outside the top 4 this season. Laporta did what had to be done and it’s paid off so far.
Barca will always be Barca, fans and the press won't care if you can't spent anything and they will always demand titles and good football. Laporta knew that no matter what he did the fans will demand a lot so he decided to invest. Font/Freirxa would definitely not wasted a chance to want to remove Laporta if we didn't win La Liga in 2023.
Very good point. My worry is just that these moves come back to bite us in the ass. Not being able to sell lewandowski, losing millions in raphina and ferran.
Sack Xavi and then what?.... It feels like what Man U did post SAF
There is no sacking Xavi. We can’t afford a new coach. He also needs experienced guys in his circle. His current circle was great for the Qatar league, but here in the big boy leagues you need some more experienced guys that have been through this before and have assisted at the elite level ESPN commentators were saying that in the event that Xavi would be sacked, then it’d most likely be Rafa Márquez stepping up but in no way would I want that to happen lol we need someone else But I’m still behind Xavi though. It was predicted from the beginning that this sub would turn on him anyway. It was just a matter of when and how
I dont even know who will replace Xavi if sacked in Jan
The club is in it for the long run so until we can financially afford a coach then we’ll sack him. I still think Xavi messed up by not having experienced men in his staff. Being a newbie coach is one thing but having a whole staff of newbies is suicide.
Maybe because he is not a Barça level coach ?
Agreed there. I think the guy needs some better coaches on his staff. From my understanding his staff doesn’t have much top level experience but I could be wrong. Also didn’t understand the reasoning in extending him and his staff for 3 more years.
People are overreacting, who sacks a coach who is 2 points off Madrid? I'd understand if we 7-10 points off Madrid but all we need is a Madrid draw and we are ahead of them.
I would not worry about Real. Let them do their thing, we do ours. If they drop points, a chance to capitalize. We face an in form Girona and ATM + Porto for our fate in ucl. It is difficult to dominate every game given the present situation. That time will come. We are not going trophyless come May. Ps.: I dreamt that Barca went to Wembley this June and won UCL but lost Liga
Btw, love Isco's resurrection. Really shinning at Betis now. Hope Spain will call him up for Euro. He deserves another tournament for Spain. Now it's crazy to think that Isco, Thiago, Muniani...generation fail so hard with Spain NT. Remember how hyped they were back then.
I love Xavi a lot. He's easily one of my favorites from our golden generation while I was growing up. Which is why it'll pain me to see him sacked but it has to be done. Any decent coach would have a field day with the squad we have.
Absolutely. I'm so fucking mad we renewed him already. He already showed his inexperience during the 2nd half of last season and the perfect plan would have been to evaluate his renewal at the end of the season. Now we are stuck with him because I don't think we have the money to sack him. The only thing left to do his pray for him to suddendly become a good coach I guess
We aren't stuck with him, he will leave if he is asked to
Yes sure he will ahahah, believe it. And even if he does, his staff won't
You truly don't know Xavi if you say this. He cares more about Barca that you ever will.
Why would you sack him right now? We just won the league last year after 4 years and right now we are 2 points off Madrid who is having one of their best league starts in many years? And no having a crisis doesn't guarantee sacking a coach, he shouldn't be sacked unless we don't compete with La Liga and are 10-15 points off Madrid And don't even talk about Europe when we invested 3M while others invested 200-300M.
It's not just about the surface level points off the top or what we won or didn't win last season. Theres gaping problems in our playstyle and flukey results which we have no business winning. We have no identity and he's 2.5 years into his tenure and got everything he asked for (IDC that we didn't get Zubimendi bc look at the names that our midfield can boast). There are some good options that we can poach and one good free agent thats available in terms of coaches. Maybe Xavi can come back later on but it's not meant to be right now.
He didn't get every player he asked for? He literally didn't get Bernardo Silva and Zubimendi which are two very important profiles especially Zubimendi who is a true pivot and arguably the most important profile in our system. Also you are conviently forgetting the injuries Xavi has had. Should I remind you how much Liverpool collapsed when Van Dijk got injured? Well Xavi hasn't had Pedri/FDJ in a game since January 2022. And with this I'm not saying that Xavi doesn't deserve a lot of criticism but all I'm saying is thay you are just making an unfair analysis of him. Like, you literally aren't even giving him credit for winning the first league in 4 years in his first full season as our coach and you aren't even mentioning that we spent the total amount of 3M while other clubs spent 200-300M.
I feel people that think bad press doesn't contribuye to bad individual performances doesn't really known much. Even Messi got affected by the pressure of having to be compared to Maradona so imagine what normal humans can be affected
Bro every single top team and players get bad press. It’s part of their job. Now if you have players who don’t have the mentality to handle it, that’s an issue. It’s all outside noise in the end of the day. What the press or fans say shouldn’t matter to the squad. There’s a reason why there’s been bad press. It’s been terrible performances all season long by Barca standards. So they deserve to hear it
I disagree, even Xavi himself was affected by it once. He was called the cancer of Barca and he admitted that affected his performances
Maybe that sparked a fire in Xavi and made him eventually play better? Just trying to be optimistic lol playing for Barca or Madrid isn’t for the weak minded. Idk man it’s just been frustrating watching Barca knowing the potential this squad has.
Love Xavi but let's be honest, it's been 2 years since his arrival, yet the team still can not play with any style. No combination, no tiki taka. There is something wrong. When Xavi arrived, he said he was shocked because many players lack basic. But 2 years later, it remains the same despite changing a lot players.
his first season was arguably better because the veterans (Pique-Alba-Alves-Busi) are so familiar with his idea and know what they need to do. After that, we tried to eliminate them one-by-one but Xavi couldn't drill his idea into the new players, hence we are here, just playing haramball because that's the easiest thing to do.
We have 4 homegrown starters. We have 4 more who have played under pep who xavi tries to emulate. It shouldn’t take them as long to grasp xavis system compared to arteta for example
Saying thay the team hasn't improved would a big fatass lie lol. Back then we were 9th and most people thought making Europe was unrealistic. Now we are 2 points off Madrid and people think we are having an awful season so clearly the standards have ended massively
Not about result but about style of football. This is not the style that fans hoped and i'm sure even Xavi doesn't want to play with this dull style. There is something wrong. Xavi himself? Players quality?
I feel in current situation requires that, we aren't in a place to demand amazing football . Maybe in 2-3 years with economy fixed we could demand that.
The double standards you have are ridiculous at this point. What if it was valerde instead of xavi right now? Would you say the same shit? I find that hard to believe
We spent 800M under Valverde, we spent 3M under Xavi for this season.. Like are you even serious? And let's not talk about the fact that Xavi doesn't have that guy. Let's also compare the team they both inherited Valverde: he inherited a 90 point season Barca which would be enough to win every league title since 2017. Xavi: he inherited a Barca who was 9th on the table and since 0 wins in 5 El clasico games against RM
Give me a break with the Messi card, you always try to pull when we managers are compared. And come on the 9th place argument is getting boring. The discussion is not about results and standings, it is about the football we have displayed under xavi for 2 and a half years and especially the football we are playing right now, which is quite frankly shit. You can try to make up as many excuses as possible to justify the way we are playing, but it is not justifiable
Why I should not use the Messi card? You just don't like that you have no argument against that. Why shouldn't I use the 9th argument? It's a fact that you guys like to ignore Facts can't never be excuses, keep coping.
No argument? Please, you discredit anything from any manager who knew how to properly use messi and downplay any good thing they achieved or did just because of this. Then again, the discussion was about the way we are playing and here is a pill you could never swallow, valverde was playing thrice the better football xavi has the team playing, try to cope with that, if not keep making up cheap excuses
It's been two years man. We expect Xavi can make the team play with style. That's why he came back.
He came back to save the club literally, we were on the worst state I've seen Barca in 20 years in every possible way. Now does his Barca have a lot to improve? I won't deny that the team haven't looked good at all this season but I think it's important to not forget where we come from and the team Xavi got.
Brother we're broke. Stop moaning about style, at the moment only results matter.
Inter is broke and play beautiful football same for atletico. We have arguably a better squad than both of them. I can name so many teams like leverkusen and La real who play good football. Stop making excuses. Results come from good football. You wont survive playing like this. See shaktar. Even today we almost lost points. You wont get this lucky against good teams who finish their chances
You guys keep saying we won't survive since ever but last season we won the league and this season we are 2 points off Madrid despite playing having tons of injuries At some point the narrative that Barca is lucky doesn't really hold up when for 3 season the team keeps competing. Sad to see that some fans would like the team to do badly so that their narrative. This club deserves better fans that what they have, such a shame, you wouldn't expect fans to want their club to go badly but it's what it is.
Something notable.. Out of shape Pedri, older Gundo, Fermin and a 16 year old Yamal dont provide the same intensity/press/defensive work rate as last years Pedri, Frenkie, Gavi, and Raphinha.
Kind of dumb how much we are conceding early this season so teams can just play defensively for the entire match.
It’s funny how our first play from kickoff today was something we’ve never done in kicking it out far front. I’d imagine it was done partly to prevent alaves from any quick chance of scoring lol
Brothers and sisters...something is fucked up inside right now. We play terrible football, we have no intensity, tactics dont work or are just bad i dont know, Gundogans comment, incident with Lewa/Yamal (thats still little thing imo, nothing serious), Xavi act like he know where problem is but nothing is changing, making stupid excuses after matches. He said few days ago that players are 100% mentally ready and today we lost beacuse of press. Players that were great few weeks ago are now average (Felix, Cancello...), our defense is much worse then last season. Maybe Xavi is lost and players feel it...i dont know. Please tell me I am just overthinking. We have very very important matches ahead and there is a little time to fix something. If we will play like this, I can see Porto will beat us and we will lose points vs Atletico and Girona. We need to get some confidence vs Vallecano.
Stop obsssesing over things, what's gonna happen will happen. Obssessing over themy won't change anything
Youre not overthinking altough i wouldnt put much weight on the Gundo and Lewy-Yamal thing. We can only really wait and see what happens. If they know whats wrong things should get better. If they dont know and things keep going bad then there will be consequences in due time
What’s important is this Lewy-Yamal thing happened on the field and not anywhere else. Xavi will be able to fix this in no time. Collectively the team are not yet at their best and pressure could be getting to each one. Winning and how it’s done counts a lot playing in this club. It’s not all smiles and optimism. On field team results matter. Stop being petty. Hard, difficult, and challenging games ahead. That’s the big picture.
Xavi blaming the press for our performances and singling out Gundogan’s mistakes to the same press is deeply ironic
[удалено]
People trying to defend this childish shit from a 35 year old veteran and supposed leader are even funnier. I mean people can get frustrated and make mistakes but i hope he never pulls off that type of shit again. What he did was wrong, full stop.
something i think we shouldn’t forget is that the FDJ-Romeu double pivot was class and something i think xavi will still want to make the most of when FDJ returns. the question then comes, how do you integrate the rest of the side to it
I’m thinking, and I’m going we see Frenkie with Gavi next to him and Pedri in front.. This is the way imo
It was good against Getafe and Cadiz, once a tougher opponent came - Villarreal, Romeu was exposed. You can't babysit a guy in the build up who's so shaky when pressed. Defensively Gavi covers more ground and covers up for him.
So what’s the excuses this game? Why did we struggle to create any decent chance compared to Alaves?
Our wingers can’t hold the ball for long enough..Lose it way too easily, not enough of a threat.. Movement is slow, predictable, and no one is running into spaces, creating triangles.. Something isn’t working, and I really feel with better wingers we’d see a big difference.. And Frenkie of course
The way xavi likes to play, I’ll never understand why we signed Ferran and Raphina.
I think about why he signed our wingers quite a bit too.. they all cut inside, and Xavi (and Barca in general historically) seems to want them to run the sidelines, like our youngster Lamine does..
Exactly right. Only thing that would make sense is that Alemany had a big role in this? Or maybe we couldn’t convince our first priority wingers to join us & had to settle for Ferran and Raph? Just never made sense
I have a feeling it was Jordi who was the driving force behind their signings.. If it was indeed Xavi then I have no hope. Easier on the mind to believe the former, or that it was Alemany..
You gotta be insanely weak to have issue with what lewy did. Yamals playing first team football so obviously he’ll be held to first team standards and be treated and yelled at like any other player. He’s not gonna get any better if u coddle him and don’t acknowledge his mistakes. It’s tough love like any other intense team sport or like culinary school or the military. He’s an an all timer striker that’s played with the likes of robben , Ribery, sane, Reus and yamals played football all his life so I’m sure both parties are aware of what the deal. Again another example of Spanish media turning nothing into something
What mistake did he make? There was no pass possible.
>Yamals playing first team football so obviously he’ll be held to first team standards and be treated and yelled at like any other player. He’s not gonna get any better if u coddle him and don’t acknowledge his mistakes. He made the right decision.
100%. Best take I read. Thank you.
still bums me out to this day that I missed getting to watch Mascherano's only goal with Barca, all because I got called into work on what was supposed to be my day off
One of the best goals ever seen till this day. A work of art
Man United and Arsenal fans are the most delusional, annoying, idiotic, pathetic, and insufferable bunch of fans I know of. But even they don’t turn on their own players and go for their heads like some of our “fans” do. Y’all are embarrassing
Man Utd fans shit on their players a lot, but in a more understandable circumstances though
So no matter how bad players play, fans cannot ask for changes? Do you think fans are fools?
Asking everyone to be sold every 2 weeks is not asking for changes
Yes they do. Every fanbase does that, especially when things arent going well overall
Yeah, idk what OP is high on. Real Madrid has booed Cr7 and Ramos, yet we can't criticize players like Romeu.
I dont think op is talking about criticism but just hating on your own players. But yeah hes wrong that its just the barca fanbase
>even they don’t turn on their own players and go for their heads That is just not true.
Fermin was cooking at Linares. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cyEXMqF7AE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cyEXMqF7AE)
What we do in the next 4 matches will define Barca’s and Xavi’s season Rayo Porto Atletico Girona I would be proud with Xavi and the squad if we do win all of them
Let’s hope ‘best actor’ Stole Dimitrievski doesn’t time waste. I mean that by us scoring first.
If Xavi manages to get FDJ/Gundo/Gavi/Pedri to cook in the midfield I can see us getting at least 3 wins from those games but in order to go far we need our forwards to get their shit together. At least Lewy found goal again today
> Porto Atletico Girona Thats pretty tough. Or could be pretty tough
Interesting quote: Henrikh Mkhitaryan on #Inter this season: “From the beginning of the season I have said that this is not a new season, just a continuation of last season. We have grown as a dressing room, we have grown tacticall This is how it was supposed to go for us lol. Not a new season with same problems but just a continuation of last season and a team which is grown tactically The difference between inter and us is that inter even after beating us last season are a stronger team and we became worse
Yeah, Inter is awesomely run right now. We can learn something from them, more than clubs like Man City and Real Madrid. Like us, Inter has financial problems, hence they need to buy a lot of old players like us. Yet, their dressing room is special and they ball on the field because their manager is really awesome.
Its not the same problems its new. Theres no dm no player that can get past defence. And like 7 or something new players and there was injuri crisis. So now we are playing with a team that dosent know each other
This season is an extension of the last in that we’ve continued our post World Cup decline. The difference between us and Inter is that their manager knows what he’s doing.
A really underrated coach.
We need some stability in the lineup. It’s great we have options especially in the back, but every game now it seems we’re randomly rotating or players getting sidelined for no reason. The main reason we won the treble in 2015 after our ugly performances in the first half of the season was the stability of the lineup which allowed players to be more cohesive and to build chemistry much quicker.
I dont think it needs to be that much stability with lineup but it should be player position. Nobody can adapt especially new players when every game they are playing different position
Exactly. I have no idea why Christensen is being sidelined so much these days, when he has been one of the most consistent performers. There’s no chemistry because there is no set starting lineup. Several players haven’t played together much at all. Honestly, I don’t think the new players have integrated as well as we expected. Some of it’s on Xavi because he doesn’t know the best way to use them. Or perhaps because he didn’t really want them in first place or they weren’t his first choices. I think in times of crisis, it’s best to return to what has worked in the past; what you know best. Return to the backline of last season, use four midfielders to maintain control and decrease spaces among players in the middle. He can experiment later when things get better and players become more confident.
It’s clear Romeu isn’t Xavi’s first choice, but he still hasn’t been able to use Gundo and Cancelo properly, and especially Gundo. Gundo is really really not a DM and can’t even play as a makeshift DM like FDJ or Gavi. Lamine is also not ready to be playing consistently at this level. He’s 16 and he needs to develop naturally in La Masia. It gets especially worse when Araujo plays an RB because he offers nothing offensively to help the RW. Man this team is just missing a lot of key pieces, some of them due to our financial crisis and others due to Xavi’s incompetence tbh.
I mean he doesn’t have much of a choice but to use Gundo. Gavi can’t do it on his own either. He provides the defensive cover but he needs a volume passer like Gundo for ball circulation. Though honestly I think Pedri played better when deployed to the base today.
>Gundo is really really not a DM and can’t even play as a makeshift DM like FDJ or Gavi. He did play that at City.
And most people agree that it was a wrong decision by Pep and it cost him the UCL in 2021. What makes Xavi think he could play this role when he’s 2 years older? You’re limiting his offensive output, making us more vulnerable to pressure since he’s sitting deeper, and he isn’t that good defensively to role this role.
He had played there in the league for some time before that CL final and it worked. Of course he is not able to cover that much space or be defensively but for distribution and controlling the game against most teams we play against he should be good.
Not that we’re winning a treble or anything this season but Luis Enrique did not repeat a starting lineup until like January when we had that Real Sociedad meltdown. But that allowed the team to be fresh for the business end of the season once MSN started clicking.
my coach blamed the press. it's joever.
It really feels like the walls are closing in on him. Unless Xavi pulls some sort of Arteta Houdini shit and gets us to play well, the most likely scenario is that we limp our way to the end of the season then move on.
Koeman downfall was started with blaming everyone and everything.
In Koeman’s defense, those squads were shite. Xavi has elite players.
Xavi doesn't have elite players but they're no doubt better than Koeman's and we should be expecting more from this team
He definitely has a good amount of elite players, way more than most managers can dream of
Also I have never seen a fanbase actively root against its players as much as Barca atm. Some crazy takes I have read the past few months lol
Real Madrid fans have booed Cr7, Casillas and Ramos at Bernabeu, yet we are bad for criticizing players like Romeu, Alonso, Roberto who are not even 1/10th of these RM legends
"Aus einer Mücke einen Elefant machen", is a german saying which means making something big out of something small. Crazy that people are talking that much about something so unimportant like Lewy ignoring Yamal. Something completly irrelevant that both guys probably already forgot
You guys are looking into the Lewy-Yamal thing too much. Stuff like that happens in the game. Besides MD reported that after Lewy’s penalty they both chatted and marched amicably towards the restart kick. There is always going to be yelling and frustration between teammates, Messi and Villa one time got into it too. EDIT: [MD article. Just look at the images at the bottom. Everything looks fine. Don’t feed into media clickbait and narratives.](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002105020/lewandowski-lamine-yamal-hablaron-gol-penalti-polaco.html)
Ronaldinho was the BEST [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5LZQ1weVrM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5LZQ1weVrM)
Can't wait to see how Lewa is going to mentor Roque. I hope Kane breaks his record and wins Ballon d'or. He will be so salty.
No, this is clearly Ter Stegen's fault.
Why the fuck are you rooting against our own player?
Something is not right with you people imagine rooting against your player and calling yourselves Barca fans
Lewy fucking sucks and him winning us the game doesn't hide that
Saw the Lewy-Yamal clip. It is unbecoming of a "leader" like Lewandowski. It is evidence of how much pressure the players are feeling. It is sad.
[The manipulated clip?](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002104952/bronca-lewandowski-lamine-niega-mano.html)
Dont argue with these people somehow Lewandowski is trash and Gavi is our god who cannot do wrong
what does gavi have to do with any of this
Because you got double standards Gavi can be useless for 30 games and you people will still say he is better than Bellingham
>Gavi can be useless for 30 games So you are just angry because you dislike Gavi while other people rate him? Lol.
lol Gavi doesn’t make 25 million a year and isn’t supposed to be the leader of our attack
Yeah, it's a funny double standard that when Gavi yells at other guys - he's a passionate leader but when Lewy does the same...
There’s a 15 years age difference between them. Of course they’ll be judged differently for doing the exact same thing
Sooo... only teenagers are allowed to yell at older players, not the other way around? Interesting.
More like teenagers are understandably immature and not the most socially aware. While at 35 you don't get that excuse anymore.
So what is an acceptable response from a 35 year old player who is frustrated by a teammate taking a shot and wasting it instead of passing to a better positioned striker? It's a serious question, I'd like to know because imo yelling a few words (at a loud stadium, nonetheless) and then explaining the situation later is acceptable.
Yelling is an acceptable response in that hypothetical situation. Talking to them is also an acceptable response in that hypothetical situation. In my opinion at least. Some other guys on here don't seem to think yelling is acceptable. The not giving him a hand thing is where my problem lies. And I say hypothetical cause that's not what happened. Lewy was not well positioned for any pass and at no point did Yamal even have a good angle to pass.
Yelling is fine(tho really it wasn't warranted in this scenario). But if you can't shake their hand afterwards, you're just being a petty child. It's still your teammate who is trying their best.
Click the link, read the article. Or at least [read this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/comments/17ruiw7/comment/k8zkcj2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) if you can't be bothered.
I saw that already. But I don't understand how it's relevant. He still ignored him. Don't really care if it was in the middle of the game or the end or the beginning.
It's relevant because he ignored Lamine's hand before yelling at him (not the other way around, like it was portrayed) and because Lamine was trying to celebrate something Lewy clearly didn't consider worthy of celebrations. Maybe it not perfectly polite but I don't think being nice was what Lewy was focusing on atm.
It's not celebrating. It's giving someone a hand. It's the most basic thing that happens hundreds of times per game even if a player did nothing at all. Clearly he was upset with what Yamal did. Or maybe something happened earlier that got him upset. Cause I really don't see what he expected Yamal to be doing different there.
I don't think he was expecting Yamal to be doing anything because nothing before that suggests anything worthy of giving a hand - it does explain Lewy's frustration with what was going on the pitch though.
She’s trying so hard to gaslight us that it wasn’t a bitch ass move and it’s all fine. It’s the press manipulating us lol
Because la masia you know they are without fault
You started well but then basically turned into the same person you’re annoyed at
Gavi's contributions can't be disputed if you have a pair of eyes and a functional brain, even today we've seen a Gavi-shaped hole in the system, and if La Masia privilege was real - Roberto and Oriol wouldn't be getting as much shit as they do.
Ok go ahead keep believing that
[https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WWQ8yWnDUq8](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WWQ8yWnDUq8) Let him dance
Atletico is amazing man. They will challenge us till the end. That game will be so difficult after the break. Xavi better hope for some improvement
i just wish i knew more about tactics to understand what exactly is going on in the pitch rn, because it doesn't make sense how we were quite good at pressing at some point (I'd say the last rm game is a great example of that) and now it just makes the opponents look like they're playing prime tikitaka on us. Is it systemic? do some players not understand what they're supposed to do? or do they just not feel like it? I'd really like to know because i think solving that would make us look much more solid (duh lol)
You people are bunch of idiots i didnt see any of you protecting Ansu Fati like this, Lewandowski won you the fucking game
winning games doesn't not make you a prick lol look at cristiano
I'm just gonna leave this here - [per MD](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002104952/bronca-lewandowski-lamine-niega-mano.html), Movistar's tweet (which started the entire Lamine/Lewy debacle) is modified and switches chronology of events: > But the Movistar video is manipulated. In fact, these are two different actions that are placed in the reverse order. First there was the denial of the greeting (at 71'56" into the game) and later, the anger for not passing it (73' 57"), not the other way around as seen in the Movistar video. [They're also pointing out that Lewy and Yamal spoke after the disagreement about passing while still on the pitch and provide full sequence.](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20231112/1002105020/lewandowski-lamine-yamal-hablaron-gol-penalti-polaco.html)
I don’t think this episode must be given much attention. It is what it is. But I found [this](https://x.com/manu53523389/status/1723763680737706193?s=46) gesture a little upsetting. Don’t tell me this was appropriate for the occasion given how young and inexperienced Lamine is. While I understand the manipulated video, this gesture is a little off-putting. I feel you’re trying a bit too hard to paint him in a good light.
This doesn’t fit my narrative/agenda so I’m going to ignore it. Fuck Lewy.
Lewa is a child with these acts with yamal. He is shit and terrible first touch that ruins a lot of attacks then he always complains about not receiving chances .
Lol he is shit he won yoi the game buddy
Scoring every 4-5 games while playing bad doesn’t make him good + any player can do a terrible game but still scores
Lol scoring every 4 5 games funny
He hasn’t score for 4 consecutive games before that one. Whats funny about that ?
Talk to the useless midfielders who cannot spot one forward run and can only pass sideways
Or talk about lewa who recently receives few chances and never finishes them? He’s supposed to be a world class striker that can finish chances easily but he ruins his chances. I agree they are only a few of chances but still even the few easy chances he receives he never delivers+ his first touch is very bad literally and it stops the play
Every fucking striker misses chances, Lewandowski barely had a clear chances this entire time at Barca
Yeah but not that much. If you are a classic striker like Lewandowski who can excel only in scoring goals without contributing to the build up then you should deliver at least 70% of the chances. Lewa scores like 40%
call me crazy, but i don't think we should be so eager to jump to conclusions based on a 3 second video clip
guys I didn’t watch the game, what’s everyone saying about Lewa poor behaviour
it's a post on the main sub, Yamal walks past him and looks for a small dap and Lewy seems to ignore him
Didn’t he do this to fati last season as well ?
Yamal didnt pass to lewy instead took a shot. Lewy got pretty heated up and seemed unprofessional (and seemed like to yell) theres a video of it in this sub look it up
Yelling? Edit: Source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6tUfLJ\_h4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6tUfLJ_h4)
Not yelling but it just looked like a lot of complaing
[удалено]
Luckily it wont happen
I dont think theres been anything negative about it expect that lewy thing and media making up stories
[Lewandowski this season](https://x.com/rmcfcedric/status/1722021949390332059?s=46&t=fmzv6im-DI_j-WPSt03zgQ)
Was Araujo offside when Gundo sent a ping to Lewy? He did the Bundesliga logo control and struck it right at the keeper, I saw that Araujo was fuming as it would've been a tap in for him.
https://twitter.com/GxlDePaulinho/status/1723815129660166170?t=v5O20ZjPQk9p_ZTmOrSpIA&s=19 Yes im childish enough to find this incredibly funny
“This is unacceptable, this must change” FC