BARCELONA, 8 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
FC Barcelona was defeated this Tuesday on the fourth day of the group stage of the Champions League against Shakhtar Donetsk, in Hamburg (1-0), in a match in which Xavi’s men were not up to the task and They saw themselves surpassed by a lower level rival such as the Ukrainians, who with their victory put themselves in the fight for qualification for the round of 16 and made the path for the Blaugrana more complicated.
Xavi Hernández described, in a press conference, the match against Shakhtar this Tuesday as “one of the worst” in the last two years. But what happened in Hamburg was just confirmation of the bad moment that Barça is going through in recent games. A bad dynamic that has caused the ‘culers’ to drop to third place in LaLiga EA Sports and to fail at the first opportunity to seal their pass to the round of 16 of the ‘Champions’.
Against Shakhtar, the Catalan team only finished once between the three posts in the entire match, this being the Barça’s lowest record so far this season. Furthermore, Barça’s expected goals in Hamburg were only 0.95, which is their worst figure in this section since January, when against Getafe at the Camp Nou their record was 0.73 expected goals. A collapse in attack that is being reflected in scoring production, having scored only 5 goals in their last 5 games.
The team’s bad offensive moment is being reflected in its goal man: Lewandowski. The Pole is going through his worst streak without seeing a goal since 2011, when he played for Dortmund and went 10 games without scoring. Furthermore, added to this is the poor streak in front of goal of another of the players called to be important in the Blaugrana attack such as João Félix, who has not seen the net since his double in ‘Champions’ against Antwerp on September 19, chaining 10 games without celebrating a goal.
But for the forward line to work it needs an engine room that produces scoring chances, and that is not working in Xavi’s Barça either. The main reason for this is injuries. The bad streak of results and play by the ‘culer’ team coincides with the injuries of two very important players in the Terrassa coach’s team, Pedri and De Jong. The Canarian, who has already had minutes in the last two games, has only been able to enjoy 234 minutes this season, and the fluidity of the game has been diminished without him.
Even more evident is the team’s drop in performance since Frenkie De Jong went down with an ankle injury. In total, the Dutch midfielder has missed 9 games, of which Barça has only been able to win 5. With him on the pitch, the Blaugranas achieved 6 victories in 7 matches, not knowing defeat, while without De Jong, Xavi’s team has lost twice.
The team notices the absence of the midfielder much more in offensive tasks. With De Jong on the pitch, Barça averaged 3 goals per game, while without him, the figure has plummeted to 1.2 goals per game. The defensive plot does not notice its decline as much, since the data for goals against the Catalans is in both cases 0.9 goals conceded per game.
A sum of bad play, injuries, lack of confidence and bad timing on the part of some players that have led to alarm bells going off at FC Barcelona, after just three months of competition. Despite this, the situation is not alarming, and a victory in any of the last two group games would give them a ticket to the round of 16 of the ‘Champions’, while in LaLiga, the distance with the leader is so only 4 points.
Even so, Xavi needs to recover strength, fluidity and speed in circulation, as well as the best version of important players like Lewandowski, João Félix or Pedri, if they want to fight to defend the league title and be able to lift the ‘Champions’ or the Cup del Rey this season.