Barcelona had to dig deep to seal their first win of the 2023/24 La Liga campaign as they sealed a late 2-0 victory at home to Cadiz.
La Blaugrana started life at their temporary Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys home in sluggish style.
After drawing 0-0 away at Getafe last weekend, Xavi opted for changes against Cadiz, to spark some life into his team.
However, despite the fresh impetus provided teenager Lamine Yamal on the night, Barcelona struggled for fluency throughout.
Dutch star Frenkie de Jong was straightforward in his assessment of Barcelona’s performance as they look to build momentum for the weeks ahead.
“We suffered today, again. We won, which is the most important thing, to gain confidence and start winning games. We played well, but we can create more danger”, as per reports from Marca.
“All the games are very important and Barca always want to win. When the 70th minute arrives and you still haven’t scored, it is harder.”
Up next for Barcelona is a trip to Villarreal next weekend, ahead of travelling to Osasuna, before the September international break.
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One of the only things I’ll give xavi credit for today was playing this man at cb instead of the disaster that is eric garcia he was really good and looked like a natural cb even though we all know he isn’t kinda tells you how good and important frenkie is and has been for barca. 👍💪
For sure. Frenkie has excelled everywhere he’s played this season, and he’s been a leader as well. He deserves that captain’s armband, no doubt about it.
Really happy with the club and the way they responded in the second half, Oscar and Xavi in particular. It was clear that the lineup and tactics weren’t working in the first half and they got really creative with the positional assignments and weren’t afraid to substitute to make it work. Playing some of these smaller clubs is like playing Serie A sometimes; they put absolutely everyone behind the ball in a low block and it’s really difficult to penetrate it.
I can see why Xavi gets frustrated with Ansu, though. He gets into a mode sometimes where he just wants to do his own thing and it screws up the alignment and throws everybody’s timing off. If he can exercise a little more discipline and Lewandowski can stay out of the midfield and stop just standing around when he’s in the box we’ll be much better off.