With such a dramatic season of highs and lows, recency bias weighs heavy when it comes to evaluating Barcelona. Although they haven’t ultimately been able to challenge for a trophy, the Champions League was secured last night with a 2-1 over Real Betis.
Within that recency bias, it’s easy to forget that Barcelona had struggled to compete with the teams at the top of the division. After defeats to Rayo Vallecano and Cadiz, it seems that the problems under Ronald Koeman have been inverted to an extent.
Despite asking for improvement every week, manager Xavi Hernandez was keen to point out that Barcelona have now beaten the other nine teams in the top half of La Liga since he arrived.
“In a lot of phases we dominated and because of unnecessary [ball] losses we enabled Betis, at set-pieces too. There are things to improve. We are winning against direct rivals for the Champions League, I insist against the top 10 [in La Liga] we have won, we have to be more constant and always competing.”
He made the comments to Sport after the match, which was won through a goal from Ansu Fati and a stunning volley by Jordi Alba. Now aiming for second place, Xavi continued with his consistency discourse, claiming things would need to change if they were to win titles next season.
