Hmmm
Xavi (Spanish Lego Pep) | Barca manager - and will be next season - or will he?
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Hairy fraud
People blowing their load far too early over Xavi.
You bumping any managers thread that isn't named Ole, to criticise them, is as obvious as night following day. Fml
They're not the finished article but he has them on the right path.
Should shave his head. First good team he's come up against all season.
The difference between Xavi and Koeman is the players available as much as anything.
Torres, Auba and Dembele a different class to Braithewaite, Memphis and Luuk de Jong!
Maybe Xavi can be a better manager too, Jury very much out. Give him a full season or two and we'll see
Torres, Auba and Dembele a different class to Braithewaite, Memphis and Luuk de Jong!
Maybe Xavi can be a better manager too, Jury very much out. Give him a full season or two and we'll see
Real Madrid
Without Benz!
He just needs more time, like Arteta.
Xavi has done a lot with the situation he was given. What happened today was shameful but the least I would blame is Xavi. The players didn't give their best.
Do people not realise that you are allowed to lose games?
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Well, at least his team had all the possession.
You bumping any managers thread that isn't named Ole, to criticise them, is as obvious as night following day. Fml
You've been on Reactionary-Cafe since 2013, you should know better! 1 game is the difference between world class and pub league!Do people not realise that you allowed to lose games?
What does it say about top-level football that a coach can enter La Liga direct from Saudi and be of such huge effect. I get that Xavi is a special case (with that massive brain of his) but it's not like he learnt all these major coaching lessons that come with slower, more normal progression. We see it sometimes with players too, like Schmeichel.
I imagine we'll see some very naïve decision-making and course correction from him in the next few years, he might even learn to let go a little of his tiki-taka. Just a little, though, he's too married to it. I really want to see him delve into the Barca youth, mould players into valuable cogs in a system like Pep did.
I imagine we'll see some very naïve decision-making and course correction from him in the next few years, he might even learn to let go a little of his tiki-taka. Just a little, though, he's too married to it. I really want to see him delve into the Barca youth, mould players into valuable cogs in a system like Pep did.
They didn't just loose a game, they got ridiculed. At home. Against a bang average team. Doesn't mean it's Xavi's fault though (even if he's the one who insists with players like Busquets who have a very hard time when there's a lot of transitions, which was predictable against Frankfurt), but we can't say they just lost a game.Do people not realise that you are allowed to lose games?
Not to excuse their loss, but how in the world did Barcelona manage to sell 30k tickets to Eintracht Frankfurt today?
The scenes were surreal.
The scenes were surreal.
The Spanish Arteta.
I think the users on this site are way too harsh on managers. One bad loss and a load of people suddenly seem to think he's a fraud. I don't get it.
Barca built a culture of serial bottlers over last couple of years, something not too foreign to ourselves. Xavi has to escape Ole's faith in doing good things only to fall short near the end.
As Ted Lasso would advise: "Be a gold fish"
As Ted Lasso would advise: "Be a gold fish"
Barca have been poor in Europe, whether the CL or EL, all season so this doesn't really come across as a huge surprise. People doubting him after one loss though is as crazy as him getting called the second Pep. Today's result will not change the fact that he's still done a very good job to get Barcelona in those Top 4 spots in the League and that's something people had serious doubts about back when he was signed. Whether he's a genuine world class manager though is something we will not know till atleast the end of next season. He's improved a lot of things with this team but he's still not had any major impact on that defense which is as clueless as ever and conceding 4 penalties over the last 2 games definitely hasn't helped either.
Given the position they were in before he was appointed, they'll consider that a good enough season. What he needs to do is kick on from what he's done this season and get the team challenging next season.
They've looked better with him than they ever did with Koeman, but that's ultimately correct. They only started looking good once they had Dembele, Pedri, Dani Alves, Ferran and Auba available
Did they?
He's a young manager, he's going to make mistakes. He (and the club) clearly underestimated Frankfurt and were not used to this kind of football.
Similar to Nagelsmann, this week can be a huge learning opportunity for Xavi, if he draws the right conclusions.
Similar to Nagelsmann, this week can be a huge learning opportunity for Xavi, if he draws the right conclusions.
He's a decent coach , I also saw his Qatari al Assad team and he had them playing beautiful fluid football though still having problems with defense and closing the gaps.
He needs to work on that and barca need to tamper their expectations in Europe, la liga's era of dominance is over and should set their ambitions in first building a stable a dominant domestic team which i think xavi is more than capable of .
He needs to work on that and barca need to tamper their expectations in Europe, la liga's era of dominance is over and should set their ambitions in first building a stable a dominant domestic team which i think xavi is more than capable of .
If they did underestimate Frankfurt they are plain stupid. Frankfurt has the means and mentality to beat top teams, and they built that for years. Their weakness is dominating lesser teams, and every professional manager or player should know this before playing them.
Though I give you the point about playing style, I don't think many La Liga side are playing this way.
I almost get the impression from Barca that as soon as they realized that they'll get top 4 in La Liga, they stopped caring as much about the Europa League.
This tie with Frankfurt exposed some of the issues we saw in Champions League group stages. I think it was Thomas Müller who said that Barcelona struggle with intensity and physicality. Xavi's style works really well in La Liga so far, where the focus is more on the technical and less on the physical side of football.
Last time they lost a game was in Jan. Having watched them 8-10 times since Xavi took over, it's not a purple patch at all, they're on the right track in terms of how they play on the pitch, if anything, this loss is a blip. Not to forget, they destroyed Madrid at the Bernabeu not too long ago.
This. It's so clear and obvious, almost makes me feel that a lot of people calling him a fraud or saying that it was a purple patch are trolling.
The title
Asking this completely separate from United (likely) getting him..
Why did they never go for Ten Hag?
He plays the Cruyff way, good relationship between the clubs, worked with Guardiola. For the last couple of yearsI thought he was destined to go there and I don’t see why they never did. Any stories or links that came out?
Why did they never go for Ten Hag?
He plays the Cruyff way, good relationship between the clubs, worked with Guardiola. For the last couple of yearsI thought he was destined to go there and I don’t see why they never did. Any stories or links that came out?
There were rumuors about him replacing Koeman, but Barca decided to go for Xavi. I guess that's all, and he might be in the mix the next time.
Wrong thread, I thought this was about arteta
They were scoring 4 goals a game for multiple games, including the game against RM. That part was definitely a bit of a 'purple patch,' they don't have a squad that can really do that in the long term.
Love itThe title
Arteta is also spanish
He's Bri'ish