Over the weekend, Barca lost 1-3 at Real in their first El Clasico game of the season, and lost the top of La Liga to their great rivals.
This result makes Xavi the coach with the worst record in his first 50 games at Barca since 2003.
After yesterday’s La Liga round of 10 kick-off, Real continued to widen the gap with Barca to 6 points.
“Barca started well but are now in a bad position,” Xavi admitted. “But that didn’t make me give up. Barca have to take it one step at a time. The road from success to failure is short, and we can’t stop.”
Coach Xavi admitted that he could lose his seat if he did not help Barca turn things around and win the title this season.
“With the efforts on the transfer floor of the club and the squad that Barca have, we have to compete for trophies,” Xavi said on October 19 during a press conference ahead of Villarreal’s match in the 10th round of La Liga.
“If I can’t win the title, as president Joan Laporta said, there will be consequences, and everything will start with me. If empty-handed, there will be a new coach coming to Barca. But I’m going to give it my all.”
In the summer of 2022, the Camp Nou owner implemented a series of economic levers and spent $ 153 million to recruit Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde, Raphinha, Andreas Christensen, Franck Kessie, Marcos Alonso and Hector Bellerin.
However, Barca failed to live up to expectations, losing two of their first four Champions League games and risking elimination after the group stage.
If Inter beat bottom team Viktoria Plzen in the next leg on October 26, Barca must be relegated to the Europa League for the second consecutive season.
People should not continue to talk about Ronaldo’s every move
From Patrice Evra’s point of view, people should not continue to talk about Ronaldo’s every move, but instead, talk about the performance that Man Utd showed, Evra insists, the Portuguese star may well have spoken to Ten Hag before putting it in the tunnel.
Speaking on Amazon Prime, the Man Utd legend shared :
“Everyone is different. I want to talk about the performance, not to defend Cristiano or anything.
We don’t even know if Cristiano told Ten Hag ‘I’m going in’, and people made up a story that just revolved around him going into the tunnel.”
“Presumably, Ronaldo told Ten Hag ‘I need to go inside to do some treatments’, so I didn’t want to find any excuses.
But, I want to focus more on United’s performances and we have to stop talking about Cristiano every day.”
Ronaldo is in the centre of criticism after a very negative attitude in the win over Tottenham Hotspur.
Manchester United have just had their best game of the season and beat Tottenham Hotspur at home 2-0.
However, the focus after this heroics was Cristiano Ronaldo, when the Portuguese striker suddenly went into the tunnel when the match was not yet in injury time.
Gareth recommended Carrick
Carrick has been recommended to the club by manager Gareth Southgate.
If all goes well, this will be the first time Carrick has officially sat as head coach in his career.
After retiring in 2018, Carrick continued to stick with Man Utd as an assistant manager under manager Jose Mourinho and manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, before deciding to leave Old Trafford when manager Ralf Rangnick was appointed.
Carrick has been recommended to the club by manager Gareth Southgate, who has a close relationship with Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson.
Along with Carrick, there have also been a number of other candidates interviewed by Boro such as Rob Edwards or Lee Cattermole.
After a long period of ‘sitting in the water’, the former England midfielder is ready to return to coaching.
Having performed brilliantly as caretaker captain at Old Trafford, helping Manchester United to an unbeaten record against tough rivals Villarreal, Arsenal and Chelsea, Michael Carrick is expected to return to coaching soon after parting ways with the Red Devils.
But it wasn’t until now that Carrick was preparing to reappear.
As confirmed by Sky Sports, Carrick and Middlesbrough have agreed on personal terms, and it is expected that the former England midfielder will be officially appointed captain of the Teesside club within the next 24 hours.
Earlier, Boro decided to sack coach Chris Wilder after losing 5/11 Championship games, and were eliminated from the Carabao Cup by Barnsley in the first round.
Conte admitted the hosts Man Utd played much better
Coach Antonio Conte admitted the hosts Man Utd played much better
Conte leads Tottenham from 2/11/2021, when they finished eighth in the Premier League.
He placed the team in the Top 4 at the end of last season to qualify for the Champions League.
But he warned that Tottenham fans should not expect the home team to win the title.
“In 11 months, it is impossible to expect the team to go from ninth place to a championship contender,” he said.
“Especially at the end of last season, we were 20 points behind the monster teams in England.”
Tottenham remain third in the Premier League, but are just three and four points ahead of Chelsea and Man Utd respectively.
They will face another tough game against Newcastle at Tottenham Hotspur, in the round of 13 on Sunday, October 23.
Coach Antonio Conte admitted the hosts Man Utd played much better when they beat Tottenham 2-0 in the 12th round of the Premier League on October 19.
“Man Utd create more chances,” Conte told Amazon Prime after the Old Trafford game. “Honestly they played much better than us.
With what Man Utd have spent on transfers, the two teams are at different levels. Tottenham will have to improve even more.”
Man Utd finished 28 times, compared to Tottenham’s nine chances.
Goals from Fred and Bruno Fernandes in the second half gave the hosts three points.
It was Tottenham’s second Premier League defeat this season, following Arsenal’s defeat at the Emirates Stadium on October 1.
Conte thinks Tottenham need to play better against strong opponents. “We had a lot of difficulties and only held Chelsea to a draw in the 92nd minute,” he said.
“But Chelsea were dominant in that game. Tottenham also lost to Arsenal and then Man Utd.
When the opponent is highly qualified, we have problems again, even though the third place on the scoreboard is good.”
Despite trailing 0-2, Tottenham only made their first substitution in the 82nd minute. Explaining the late personnel decision, Conte said:
“Richarlison and Dejan Kulusevski are injured, and Lucas Moura has not fully recovered.
We have to play with a 3-5-2 system, as there are only two strikers, Son Heung-min and Harry Kane. I have to use a lot of young players for this game.”
