Xavi also remains without a goal

Xavi used up to five attackers against Betis: Abde, Memphis, Coutinho, Dembele and Luke de Jong. And only one, the former Liverpool player, shot on goal. Lenglet, who headed off a corner, and Araujo, in an identical action, they finished off on goal. Two shots between the three sticks of the centrals, one only from the 5 forwards.

And not because it is old (it has been dragging for more than a year, always mitigated by Messi’s eternal effectiveness) it ceases to be serious. With Leo in Paris cuddling up his seventh Ballon d’Or, Barça feel like a goal orphan.

It is a team that does not threaten offensively, incapable as its forwards are of generating danger. And when they look into the enemy area they become blank bullets, almost all of them converted (the absence of Ansu Fati has a devastating effect) on secondary characters.

Even the center-backs, even in set pieces, are much more poisonous than the catalog of forwards that the new coach now has, the same ones he had. Koeman. And Barça, which in just one year has lost Suarez, Messi and Griezmann, is changing attack (on Saturday they were headlines Abde, recently arrived from Second B, from the Hercules, Memphis and Coutinho), but with the same balance. Nor do they kick. Or when they shoot they don’t focus well either.

There is no way to solve this problem that has turned the Catalans into the sixth highest achievers in the championship. They add 23 goals in 15 days behind Madrid (37), Atlético (27), Betis (26), Sevilla (25) and even the enormous Rayo de Iraola, who has scored 24 goals, surpass him.

The drama continues as Barça’s poor record in their last three home games attests. 270 minutes of competition, 12 shots on goal (six against Espanyol in the debut of Xavi, three against Benfica and another three against Betis) to sign a single goal.

The one who signed Memphis penalty in the derby to knock down the perico team. Then, nothing at all, which caused the new Barça coach to feel now the same despair that he suffered in his day Koeman.

“More aggressive in attack”

Xavi tries everything. He went from playing with a natural winger (Abde) and another hairpiece (Coutinho) to use two cigars. Dembele came out and anchored on the right wing, sending Abde to the left flank.

But not even so did the coach find offensive solutions for a team to score a goal (he did, yes, three against Villarreal) at the Camp Nou it is almost transformed into a pharaonic work. Remains Memphis, the front lighthouse, at the center of the debate.

“We have to help him understand the game … he also helps us and is unmarked in depth and we cannot find him,” said the coach, criticizing himself for the lack of connection with the ‘nine’. “We generate things, but we have to be more aggressive in attack,” Xavi pleaded, assuming the need to shoot more and better, in addition to focusing well.

Related news