We just need and actual DM. De jongs mobility will leave space behind and gundogan isn't the best guy to cover up for him and gavi is out for the season. I believe a proper dm would fix most of our defensive problems

Other things to add : - The insane pressing game that previous season the team was doing. The back line pressed high but it was also with the help of the midfielders and wingers. The ball recovery of last season was higher and this is because of the pressing they were doing before. - The amount of subs that Xavi got last season was TOP. You could rotate a lot of players and still be competitive , Gavi , Ferran , Depay , Ansu Fati , Jordi Alba , and a lot more players that helped a lot. The current squad feels a bit thin for the season. - In addition to that , the injuries did not help. Lewandowski , Raphina , Pedri , DE jONG , GAVI , Ter Stegen , Araujo , Kounde , Cancelo , and more players have suffer injuries this season. I know other teams like City losing KDB or Madrid losing Coutois are big ones for them , but they have incredible depth , something that Barca lacks and should be able to fix - The BACK (Balde , Araujo , Christensen and Kounde) are currently not on their best form , Balde for some reason have been poor for months , Araujo after his injury is inconsistent , Christensen is not as focus and as sharp as before , and Kounde seems to have confidence issues were he wants to be a center back , but plays better as a right back , but then he makes mistakes on those two positions. - Ter Stegen been injured is also another reason. He was BARCA´S best player last season and the key player on those 1-0s wins - Xavi also tactically change the system and adapt according to the situation. He even started Gavi over Raphina on the left wing to have more ball control , more aggresion on defending , and it adds an extra layer on the pressing game. While this season he is more adamant on just always playing his 4-3-3. - Also Xavi this season seems to wanted to be "more aggresive" , which is why the 3-2-5 on paper seems very good but he lack one fundamental player for this to work , and yes that player is "Sergio Busquets". Going back to the Barca of 2008/09 , Guardiola played a very risky tiki taka gameplan that you either win 3-2 or 4-3 , or you win 5-0 or by 4 goal difference. Something that Xavi wants to do but lacks that key player and the pressing game from last season. - Many attacking players have this "inconsistency" in them. Joao Felix for example , one game can be the game changer and your MVP , and the very next game he is at most average or below average. Same applies to Raphina and Ferran Torres , two players that in some games were "key players" but lack consisteny. Even Lewandowski who should have score at least 8-10 more goals is underperforming big time. - Finally , perhaps something more phycological , these players have to believe that "THEY CAN TURN THIS AROUND" , "they can play good football" , ,"they can beat any team" and more importantly , I feel they lack "motivation".

Since Gavi is injured we can't stop conceeding goals. What a player we are missing for this season😔

Can’t say I’m too surprised that Barca are suffering without an adequate ball winner in midfield to replace Busquets. Twenty years ago i saw a similar dillema in Barcas first team. It was Ronaldinho’s first season at Barca and they were really inconsistent. Until The loan signing of Edgar Davids from juventus turned the second half of the season upside down and Barca became the most dangerous team in la liga. The circumstances that made a midfield terrier of Edgar Davids’ caliber available like that were unique and it’s unlikely Barca can get someone that good on loan this month but i really hope they can find someone decent before they make a move for a more permanent solution. Barca have quality everywhere else except in this most crucial of positions. Busquets was always going to be a very difficult act to follow but a solution needs to be found to this conundrum.

Not directly mentioned in this video, but I think Felix's lack of defensive awareness is a huge problem. His positioning and workrate during the pressing and counterpressing is horrible. The "four-midfield" tactic of last season essentially shares the 3-2-5 structure of this season, except that Felix is now at Gavi's position, which tells a lot about our poor defense.

Been literally sitting waiting for this. Thanks brother!

this vid is hitting different after that supercopa final

Thanks for creating this. Our defensive issues are notable, however our finishing is much, much more of an issue to me. Modern Barca has never been a defensive powerhouse. Even when we set defensive records, it was done on the back of a team press and keeping the ball away from opponents and then outscoring them. I saw the little notation/animation about Raphinha having the 2nd highest xA in Europe.... somehow I still don't rate his performances. He's still way too inconsistent and predictable outside of his moments of brilliance. I think Xavi has to drop Felix, use a 4th MF as well as start cutting Lewandowski's minutes and split that between Roque and Guiu.

This might be a hot take but i think Xavi is great tactically but he tends to undervalue easy wins, we’ve played weird formations at the start of winnable games or played weaker lineups and lost. Easy games that maybe didnt matter in the big picture like how we still classified on top of our cl group but losing those winnable games compound the media narrative that is always looking to attack Barcelona anyways so i think he should just anhilate easy teams to build up confindence cause our issue I believe is mental. All our opponents play with fun and feeling free and our players seem more stressed and worried thats at least my perception having seen every single game.

Literally what I’ve been trying to explain to my dad. My dad wants to put all the blame on araujo and kounde when, in reality, it’s the entire defensive tactics that needs addressing. We put ourselves in positions where we are going to get scored on and the defense needs to start from the front. Offensively, we need to take more chances to advance the game. Too much passing in the back and then playing a diag that has less than 50% chance of being a good play. When pedri came on today, he was looking to advance the game with his dribbling which is something gundo and Frenkie haven’t been doing. More so gundo. Take chances when they are appropriate and then the game will become easier

Great content as always. People are really quick to call for Xavi's head after a half season run of being somewhat mediocre, but will completely ignore that Lewa has been in poor form for almost a year now. For the last decade and half Barca always had fantastic finishers (apart from that short gap between Messi's departure and Aubameyang's arrival) and now that Lewa is underperforming and without a clinical alternative, there's no way around to it. Maybe Roque will pick up the slack and maybe he won't but it's not wise to count on a 19 y/o in his first season in Europe to fill in the massive boots. Sure, the midfield lacks a solid DM and as Cruyff said, the loss of Busquets will be much more significant than anything else, and the squad in general lacks depth in terms of experienced and proven players, but that's not something that can be solved in the middle of this financial crisis Barca are going through. 5 years ago, this problem could've been easliy recitified by buying Alvarez and Kimmich (or players with similar qualities) but now all we could afford were Romeu and a loaned in Felix. Barca are going to suffer for a while. Fans should stop blaming the manager for things he cannot control and just support the team the best that they can. Remember that 8 of their 27 league titles and 4 of 5 UCL trophies came during a very short period, which also happens to coincide witht he period Messi was here. The fact that Xavi won the league last season is a miracle by itself and with all the injuries and departures that hasn't been replaced, he is still doing an admirable job, even if there are flaws.

Sometimes I wish Barcelona and their coaching staff can watch this dude analyze our game.. They would benefit from it.

Well this was prophetic

I just witnessed your explanation in Today's match against RMA.... Our BACK is broke😢😢

Another important point on poor games is that, there's no intel-gathering on opposite side? Allow me to explain, we're often suprised, caught off by teams playing their literaly normal style. Girona's being offensive with Gutierez often coming quite high on the pitch and freeroaming into "10" slot, sooo, why the team acts surprsied when he does exactly that in game, and scores becasue it looked like nobody expected the LB to push up that hight. Another time, I think it was againt Sociedad, they were likely to start a fast, mobile, but mostly big and strong "9". Normally you would expect Araujo to be deployed in centre, to deal with him, as he's also fast, big and strong. So what happens in the game??? Kounde (180cm~) is deployed centrally and is having constant problem with the striker, while Araujo play's on the right. This creates lots of chances before Xavi's understanding that big fast player, may need another big fast player to cancel it, and when he switches Araujo with Kounde, "magically" the striker can't do much because of not having physical superiority anymore. And there were many more matches, where Xavi can't react to the team he's facing

Jamie aka Talk FCB needs to see this

You sir know exactly what you’re talking about based on yesterday

Thank God. This video puts in words what I was experiencing. I hate football fans, blaming Xavi when it's clearly not the issue. We do create chances; we don't get outmatched defensively. Our players just look out of shape constantly because of the profiles. With a good Lewandowski & no Pedri/Gavi injuries we'd be flying this season

This channel is so chill! Great content as ever. Love FBref for stats!

Been waiting for this video after GW 3 against Villarreal.

this is a really good analytic. deep and descriptive. thank you so much to explained this so we as a fans can understand the club situation

after watching the elclassico now the same still persists however like u emphasized i agree that tactically barca are placed well the team needs to work on the individual performances and fitness of players more than anything

Isn't this just the perfect video recommendation...

Amazing review. So objective and well analyzed. Congrats for your dedication, bro

I’ve been waiting for a video thankyouu

It’s truly amazing what you do

Just shows how much we miss Busquets and Gavi; especially Busquets because he was the best there is. I wish Xavi started giving chances to young DMs from the academy to nurture them right. Right now we are in a surplus of creative midfielders in the team.

Ngl this is very good quality analysis. Never heard of this channel before but I'll be checking it out again

Félix, Cancelo, gündo they are good offensively but they medium to bad defensively barça need a player like rodri, tchouameni or fabinho a real n6 in the pivots role

Post shot XG is a very useful statistic. It shows the XG of a shot after the shot is taken

00:02 Barcelona are struggling in La Liga despite high expected goals. 00:57 Barcelona struggling to convert high-quality chances into goals 01:53 Barcelona struggles with chance conversion and defensive performance. 02:49 Barcelona's defense issues stem from impatience in playing the long diagonal too early in the buildup. 03:45 Barcelona's defensive vulnerabilities due to turnovers and individual errors 04:38 Barcelona's defensive issues stem from player profiles and lack of natural ball winners in midfield. 05:29 Defensive errors and poor conversion of chances are costing Barcelona points. 06:28 Barcelona's defensive issues need to be addressed by Xavi.

The expected goals stat here is completely misleading. Barcelona create chances but they are in the large majority half chances at best. I simply don't understand as someone who has watched all the games how these are significant chances.

'... watch Busquets and you see the game', even in his absence.

Great analysis and explanation ❤️.

1. Impatience 2. Individual errors 3. Gundogan

Great analysis, shame about the paywall 2nd half to this video, feels half-finished :/ i get it though

Good gravy! Restarting vid to take notes, I am doing the same thing in EAFC! it's so clear!

Finally someone else noticed this. The gap between the forwards and midfielders when pressing is too much

They just took a 4-1 today

Superb analysis

The team needs to talk more during the game I feel. There is no chemistry. They can’t seem to defend simple overlaps. In attack too, the players need to talk and experiment while they are in the game.

Also, regarding the 3-2-5 system, am i the only one who thinks it completetly fumbled? Like, it's really hard to pinpoint the overall formation lately. For example on the left halfspace, you can have De Jong, Balde, Lewy, Ferran and Gundo through out the game, and while i'm all in for rotating traingles, we're inconsistent with it, which i feel makes it hard to speed up passes, when you can't play from the head, becasue there's no way to know when the current player is. This often leaves lots of free space, because noone is covering for each other. For example let's look at Girona, squad may vary, but if player A moves, player B knows exactly where and when to move. We lack any proper structure, and that hinders any quicker passing, becasue we mostly have to rely on Geniuses in the likes of Pedri, De Jong, Gundo for any faster. I feel like this team just doesn't feel like team, but a bunch of individuals that really depend whole game plan on. For example Felix, he's a massive talent, but he's freeroaming spirit and lack of proper defense play holds him back, because if he's having a good day, he's a beast, but then again, he can be literally a minus player in team too. I feel like there's a massive gap between team that Xavi would need, and what can be done. Nor Ferran or Raphinia are specialist on 1v1, but they're continuosly expected to do so, totally missing their best style of play.

Can you make a comparison between Xavi's All sad vs Xavi's Barcelona? Although they're totally different leagues, I saw a few of all sad's matches and they felt way more Barça.

Bro where you been ? 😢Are you okay ? Thanks for the content,I hope you’ve been well❤️

Very interesting video, great analisis

Please make video on Brazil's new manager dorival junior... Appreciate your effort...❤️❤️

Hey, thank you for your analysis. Can you make a video about the Uruguayan national team of Bielsa plz?

Bro casually made an Araujo fail comp😢

Another thing I noticed is that Xavi hasn't been as demanding to his players like last year. He would scream and shout indications, but now he just remains quiet. No sense of direction in our tactics

the 1st 2 seasons in xavi's barca a lot of things were in turmoil but one thing was consistent: players looked happy and seemed to fight for the badge; they gave their everything under Xavi. This season players don't look happy.

I feel like another issue is the fact that we press in situations where we should maybe sit in a compact block instead. We just don't have the ball winners like last season for the same approach. A DM is really needed 🥲

Genuinely I think having a proper good DM would naturally plug up holes that opposition forwards like to occupy and would make the defense a lot less chaotic if they knew they didn't have to worry about the gaping hole in front of them. Teams used to target Busquets for the sole purpose of forcing a turnover in that region, and now they don't even need to force it anymore if turnovers from higher up the field lead to the same results without a proper dm presence. It would mean that there are less players going forward but all these players going forward are only taking up space and not producing anything anyway. It's one thing to have 5 players in forward positions at all times while scoring 3 goals and conceding 2 per game, but we're scoring 1 and conceding 2. If these forwards aren't going to be scoring anyway, then I'd rather shore up our defense and force the forwards to show some technical talent for once and show us why they deserve to be in the squad than simply relying on a systematic overload in the final third. Also I wish Pep would provide us some wisdom behind the scenes man. He talks to Arteta and De Zerbi, but why not Xavi

liked before the video even started 😁

Losing Pedri, gavi and Busquets.... Midfield chemistry is completely lost

That's what happen when busquets leave. Not only offensively, but also defensively. The man in the shadow.

Our strikers need to get back into form, specifically Lewandowski. He just can’t finish anymore, and it’s hard to watch. I’m sure he’s in agony about it also. Also, he just looks so stiff whenever he has the ball. And yes, thank you TFP for not hopping on the “Xavi out reactionary bandwagon “. The last thing we need is to make rash decisions in this club.

I think this is one of the best highlights of how vital Busquets has been to the team for the last ~14 years

we need another coach

What I notice is they are the only team I see that plays wing backs without dropping the DM into the line as a 3rd CB. Your CB’s are constantly out numbered on turnovers and when not in posession. It isn’t feasible to push 8 players forward and expect the 2 Cb’s to cover the whole line.

I miss the intensity we had last season

Are you Seb Stafford-Bloor from Tifo/Athletic?

maybe try Kounde in midfield

xG is cumulative because that is the correct way to calculate the expectation of a binomial distribution. A large number of low xG chances will increase the variance only. Good xG models do include context.

Said it in a conversation with my friend’s that Barca needs to go out and get a ball winning dm, to which my friend replied that they probably won’t because they are obsessed with finding a Busquets replacement. Which i’m afraid is true, they are looking for someone who can both be a deep lying playmaker and a ball winner at the same time and unfortunately it is not easy to come by that perfect combo, and the players that do have it are out of Barca’s financial reach

Finally video about barca!!

I dont know if you read comments, but can you please make a video on why we suck this season and compare us to what happened last season, i mean xavi couldve turned us into monsters

Without a proper spine (DM), the team is all over the place and vulnerable

The problem: They went from one of the best teams ever created with the historic (not even current) top stars from each south american and european nations (imagine randomly having Bousquets, Iniesta, Neymar, Suárez, Messi, and even prime Sánchez) to overrated and overpriced european players that don't even have a good physique. I really don't think the coach is the problem here.

i swear i will send this video to xavi if i know how to reach him , nice video

Hello... love your videos.... I've just watched Napoli vs juve....3rd March 2024... could you do a tactical analysis on the game ... that Napoli coach might be on to something..😂

Great! Now, could someone please send this video to Xavi? ;)

So true King 🤴 💜 ⚽️

Pressing is another issue to consider this season

People, this is our team and xavi is the best possible trainer for the game we play and like! He showed it last year. We just need a good DM who helps the Defense and does what Busquets did last year. I’m convinced that a DM will solve all our defensive problems and by doing that we definitely will play better! Keep calm and trust Xavi! If we sack him, we’re doomed basically, as there is no better trainer. Força Barça!!!

This is very good

the absence of Busquets and even Alba is a big problem. this year Barca look void of ideas when they have the ball, they just run around with seemingly no plan.

A Busqets shaped hole in the team.

Isn’t obvious? the midfield plays a big part in helping the defenders. First half of the season Pedri was out and Araujo was also out for a while, now gavi is out and so is ter stegen while also feeling the absence of Busquets who’s still a top 5 CDM in the world

Now make one about why we can't attack too 😂

I will not comment on others, but I could name Kounde, but we clearly need a world-class DM and a number 9 or maybe a new coach.

How do I send this to Xavi?

they're creating quality chances, the goals will come

It's not that difficult to fill in these gaps. We have a player for every position in the formation that has always given us the best results. 4-3-3. Using the players who are healthy today you have... Sergi roberto, aroujo, kounde, and balde/ alonso as back four. CDM FRENKIE with gundogan and fermin lopez who we should have more faith in for that position but now that pedri is back it's even better for him to start. Top 3 is lewa, rapahina/ yamal on the right, and joao felix on the left way before anyone else. I love Xavi but he plays around too much with the lineup instead of playing the right players in their natural positions. That's really what's messing us up.

I hate this club now thank you xavi laporta koeman bartmeou

Well one of the biggest reasons is that Barca does not have Ter Stegen right now. He saved alot of chances last season, if you have a goalkeeper saving 1 shot less a game then you have these stats.

Pedri is getting repeatedly injured now. FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team played him too much when he was fit and young. Are we witnessing another Jack Wilshire case? The injuries of Gavi also worries me.

SUPER COPA FINAL 4-1 REAL MADRID - FC BARCELONA

Great DM can change the match look at rodri and rice we need a great DM like busqui and we play better

I still think its an attacking issue every team is bound to concede goals barcelona have not been taking their chances since the start of last season we have seen this against teams like Bayern and Girona

That CDM role I hope they get one on loan the for summer

is kalvin phillips or oriol romeu a natural ball winner?

So basically Sergio Busquets, but no one would admit that. We lost him and are not remotely close to replacing him :(

The problems are more than 1. 1. Uneffective press 2. Lack of character all over the pitch(expect gavi) 3. No discipline and clear idea. 4. Lack of quality in the wing Xavi needs to address it all and asap. 😢

Last season we criticised Busquests so much he decided to leave... now we are reaping the reward.

XAVI you watchin?

The team selection against Madrid was horrible. My team would've been: Felix, Ferran, Lamal/Raphinha, Pedri, De Jong, Gundo, Balde, Christensen, Kounde, Araujo. Just a simple 4-3-3.

Its crazy how little time it takes for a club as big as Barca to be in absolute shambles. Other clubs should take a lesson from Barca in how not to manage your club and its finances. Its gonna take Xavi atleast 1-2 more seasons to get everything in order and run this barca like a well oiled machine.

When all of the players are underperforming, it's on the coach. You wonder why Araujo comes to Uruguay and he plays like the best defender in the world for us, and then he goes to Barcelona and Vinicius scores a hattrick. It's simple, really.

I'm surprised you didn't directly criticize Lewandowski. Absurdly poor finishing, despite having more help (Felix) in attack than last season. If our final third improve, we will manage games better.

Easy Answer= Busquets (We won't find another Busi but we need a defensive midfielder)