MADRID, 13 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
FC Barcelona stumbled again this Sunday in LaLiga EA Sports at home, a draw (3-3) against Granada, penultimate classified, which leaves Xavi Hernández's men 10 points behind Real Madrid and practically ruled out for the title, and with a worrying baggage in defense, since in the last two home games in the domestic competition they have conceded eight goals.
Xavi's team seemed to have reacted after the defeat against Villarreal (3-5) at the Estadi Lluís Companys with two consecutive victories in the League against Osasuna and Alavés. However, a new unexpected setback at home against Granada has returned all the ghosts to 'Can Barça'. And Barça once again conceded three goals in a match and it is the fourth time this has happened in 2024.
In total, in the domestic championship, FC Barcelona has conceded 33 goals in 24 games, a figure that already exceeds by 13 what they conceded in the entire last campaign and to find something similar in the club's history you have to go back to the 2000-2001 season, in which he had conceded 34 goals at this point. In fact, the current record is Barça's second worst record in this century and the 14th worst in its entire history.
Another defensive aspect that Barça has to improve is its pressure. One of the main characteristics of the Catalan team's defense last League was the ability to steal from the opponent's ball, something that is conspicuous by its absence this season. Barça has gone from averaging 7.1 recoveries in the final third of the field to doing so 3.5 times per game, as well as from doing so 15.2 times in the opponent's half to doing so on 7.3 occasions.
Numbers that show that the 'culer' team is more easily planted in their own field, which also causes them to be shot at more times. If last season Xavi's team conceded 8.6 shots against every 90 minutes, this season they concede 10.8 in the same period of time. Data to which is added the decrease in Marc-André Ter Stegen's save percentage, which has gone from 87.4% to 68% this season.
PROBLEMS IN THE DEFINITION ABOVE
Beyond the defensive, another of the musts of this Barça 2023-2024 is being the definition. It is the LaLiga EA Sports team that has generated the most expected goals so far this season with 54.3, or in other words 4.3 more than it has managed to score. In fact, they are the only team in the first half of the table along with Real Betis that has scored less than what they have generated.
A lack of success that is personified in the figure of Robert Lewandowski. Although he is the team's top scorer in LaLiga EA Sports and has scored in the last two league games, the Pole has 10 goals in the League, two of them from eleven meters. Leaving aside the penalty goals, the forward, according to Driblab data, has generated chances to have scored 11.6 goals, however, he has only scored eight. A negative balance this year and different from the 23 marked last year due to the 20.7 generated.
And if this were not enough, the move as a local to the Estadi Lluís Companys is negatively affecting him. Beyond the coldness of a stadium with an athletics track and the low attendance at Montjuïc, the Blaugranas have seen their sporting performance plummet. So far, they have added 28 points in the 13 games they have played at home, which means that the maximum score they can aspire to is 46 points, two less than those achieved last season.
Collective and individualities that have precipitated their performance this season and caused the current champion to be 10 points behind the leader, Real Madrid, and on matchday 24. In addition, Xavi's men also saw how the whites, in the Super Cup, and the Athletic Club, in the Copa del Rey, knocked them out of the fight for two titles. Now, with the Champions League as its only asset, FC Barcelona needs to recover defensive consistency and recover the best version of its players if it wants to turn around the current situation.