Barcelona went from La Liga champions the worst teams

After winning the league last year, the Blaugrana could be out of the title race before Christmas, How Xavi’s Barcelona went from La Liga champions to ‘one of the worst teams in Europe’ in just six months

Last weekend, after Barcelona dropped points to Valencia, manager Xavi lamented the state of his team: “We must be one of the worst teams in Europe in terms of effectiveness.” It was the first real negative sentiment shared by the boss this season, who, for most of the campaign, has suggested that his team, currently 4th in La Liga, are simply victims of bad luck.

His more recent pessimistic view seems to be the one closest to reality. The Blaugrana, comfortable Liga winners last year, are all but out of the title race this season, nine points behind league leaders Girona, and falling out of sight of hated rivals Real Madrid.

Things are poor at both ends of the pitch. Barca are conceding too many cheap goals, and not scoring enough good ones. They have dropped points against some of the worst teams in the league, and been handily beaten by the two best. These are not the typical trends of title winning teams.

But there’s some complexity here. Barca have not simply lost all of their quality, nor has the rest of the league suddenly become unbeatable. Rather, a combination of factors – some of Barca’s making, others out of their control – have seen them fall out of the race for the top spot before Christmas

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Supersports24 takes a look at where it has all gone wrong for the Blaugrana this season.

A faltering defenceless

A cynic could have looked at Barca’s defending numbers last season and say that they were unsustainable. The Blaugrana kept the most clean sheets in Europe, and only conceded 20 goals in La Liga. Barcelona went from La Liga champions

Marc-Andre ter Stegen, was having a statistically extraordinary campaign, and a suffocating back-line yielded very few good chances. These things, put together, were no accident. But they were, perhaps, impossible to replicate.

A look at Barca’s European campaign, which was marked by comfortable defeats at the hands of Manchester United and Bayern Munich, suggested that there were ways to beat this team. Someone just had to figure out how.

And the answers have revealed themselves. Fundamentally, Barca are far too easy to play through on the break.

Girona battered them four times in transition, while Rayo Vallecano, Antwerp, Granada and Villarreal did much the same.

They have conceded within 60 seconds twice this season, while Ter Stegen simply isn’t reproducing his shot-stopping magic of last season.

A change in midfield is a touchpoint here. Primarily, the loss of Sergio Busquets has had an immense impact. Xavi revitalised his career last season, asking the ageing pivot to play much deeper, win tackles, and circulate possession.

By minimising his running, Busquets became a far better defender. That impact hasn’t quite been replaced after the Spaniard moved to MLS’ Inter Miami.

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Inconsistency along the backline also hasn’t helped. For most of the second half of last season, Xavi played Jules Kounde, Ronald Araujo, Andreas Christensen and Alejandro Balde. There were changes – Jordi Alba offered cover, for example.

But that unit steadied things at the back. This season, though, Xavi has tinkered. Loan signing Joao Cancelo was brought in, while Araujo has occasionally been shifted to right-back. The result is a lack of continuity and a defence that doesn’t always seem to be entirely cohesive.