How Xavi Has Been No Better Than Ronald Koeman At FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona are no further forward with Xavi Hernandez than they were under the rule of his predecessor Ronald Koeman.

Replacing the Dutchman in November, the club’s second all-time appearances leader deserves much credit for the way the Blaugrana climbed up the table on his watch.

While lingering in ninth in La Liga with Koeman, the Catalans have risen to second and looked to be mounting a title challenge to leaders Real Madrid after a 4-0 thrashing of Los Blancos at the Bernabeu in El Clasico ahead of the international break.

As Barca embarked on a 15-game win streak and were playing sexy football, it seemed like the good times were back at Camp Nou much sooner than expected.

In just a matter of five days over Easter, however, Culers have been brought crashing back down to earth and have to face facts.

Through Thursday’s demoralizing 4-2 aggregate loss to Eintracht Frankfurt – which left Xavi still without a home win in Europe as traveling fans seemed to outnumber their hosts on their own turf – and then Monday’s sobering 1-0 loss to relegation-threatened Cadiz, FC Barcelona’s season has now ended.

With nothing left to play for other than securing Champions League qualification, Barca have now suffered their first home back-to-back defeats since 2003 and an additional worrying stat shows that they are no further forward with Xavi than they were with Koeman.

In 30 games, Xavi has achieved just 16 victories at a success rate of 53.33%, which is not only worse than Koeman’s 58.21%, but also the lowest percentage of games won since Charly Rexach in 2002 who only managed 50%.

Furthermore, for all the coach protests that his team does not have a Lionel Messi-esque dependence on Pedri, who is now out for the rest of the season, there is more proof in the pudding than just the simple development of losing the Frankfurt and Cadiz games when he was already battling his injury in the first half of the fomer fixture and was unavailable for the latter.

Put simply, Barca have an 89% win rate with Pedri in La Liga this season with 32 points out of a possible 36, and just 49% without him or 28 points from a potential 57.

But at least Xavi and Pedri will have a fresh go at things from the beginning of next season, and have a clean slate to try and make their own history together and improve on what has gone wrong this time round as opposed.