I was extremely pissed and hurt after the Girona game. It was such a big opportunity missed and such a huge moment on the title race. And while the wound was still raw for the fans we were playing our last group stage game against Royal Antwerp. I just wasn't feeling it yesterday to write about the game, I was too annoyed with Barca after that Girona game.
In the greater scheme of things, yesterday's game was completely pointless and had no impact - we had already qualified for the Round of 16 as group leaders. Hence it was actually the right decision to rest first team players and give the fringe bench players a go at the top level and some champions league experience. And you are still expected to win against Royal Antwerp with your B or C team or Academy team.
But my God we were bad!
It was royal antwerp for fuck's sake, no offence! Antwerp has been unarguably the worst team of this season's group stage. They had zero points after 5 rounds, they had conceded the most number goals after the first round. So if you are Barcelona you are expected to to go to antwerp and fucking win no matter you are playing your bench or whatever.
Jhonny Sins "cums" early to the party!
Not something you can accuse Jhonny Sins of really! But this our very own catalan Jhonny Sins - Oriol fucking Romeu! My god what the hell happened to this guy! He was supposed to be the solid rock for us at DM but he has just been our Harry Maguire and Andre Onana blended into one! The commentators kept blaming Inaki Pena for the first goal, but it was really Oriol Romeu who had the blunder. He was dispossessed too easily (like he was for the rest of the game) and we were 1 goal down in less than 2 minutes.
By the way, for the second goal we conceded was also entirely on Jhonny sins - getting dispossessed too easily outside the box! Becoming an all too familiar scene!
Who is to blame?
I am not on of those fans who is calling for Xavi to be sacked. although I don't know how long I can keep defending Xavi. I love xavi and his playing style and I am all for giving him time but for how long?
I mean yeas, Barcelona players missing absolute sitters in the game vs Girona - Xavi can't really step on to the pitch and score those goals right? In fact, this season of all the teams in La Liga, Barca have missed the most big chances. If your strikers are not scoring the goals what can the coach really do.
But there's the other side to the coin as well. WHY are these strikers with so much talent being so bad all of a sudden? WHY has Lewandowski forgotten how to score? WHY hasn't Xavi given him the talking down and a smack in the head which Lewa totally deserves? WHY hasn't Xavi dropped him straight to the bench and tell him he has to fight for his place and not make him an auto starter despite being worse than Lukaku?
These are all down to Xavi. He, I think has not managed the players well at all. He hasn't been as strict as he needs to be, there's no other explanation.
Look at Jhonny sins, he was playing at a very high level at Girona. But under Xavi he has undergone a continuous decline over the last months.
Look at Eric Garcia, he was playing really low level football under Xavi and he moves to Girona and my goodness look at what an invincible player he looks like.
Take the examples of the young kids - Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez - when they came straight out of the academy from under the guidance of the academy coaches, notice how awesome and exciting they were. Fast forward to a few months under xavi's coaching and both of them seem lost, less sharp, less threatening.
I have been a big fan of that Golden Barca La Masia generation and maybe that's why I am biased towards Xavi. But looking at this logically, and even as I am writing down my thoughts in a logical - I can start to see the problem with Xavi.
I am afraid his time at the club is over.
