Reports linking Xavi Hern\u00e1ndez to Manchester United have some basis, but the momentum appears to be coming chiefly from the coach rather than the club.<\/p>\n
A first full season in charge at Barcelona delivered the Spanish Super Cup and the 2022\u201323 La Liga crown ahead of a Real Madrid side led by Karim Benzema. The tensions beneath that success then surfaced in the next campaign, which ended without a trophy and finished with Xavi relieved of his duties.<\/p>\n
According to Fabrizio Romano, Xavi is \u201cready\u201d to return to management, \u201cwould love to take a job in the Premier League\u201d and is \u201cvery open\u201d to the Manchester United opportunity created by Ruben Amorim\u2019s departure. The same report also stressed that \u201cnothing advanced\u201d and \u201cnothing concrete\u201d has arisen between the club and Xavi.<\/p>\n
Xavi\u2019s return to Barcelona was presented as a restoration of a long tradition. As Pep Guardiola put it, \u201cJohan Cruyff painted the chapel,\u201d Guardiola once mused. \u201cAnd Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it.\u201d With just a little more than two years coaching in Qatar on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, Xavi made clear his commitment to possession football: \u201cWe cannot lose our \u2018house style,\u2019\u201d he declared. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing which has made the club great.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his two full seasons as Barcelona boss, the team averaged 64% possession in La Liga, but sustained penetration was often lacking. The 2022\u201323 title owed as much to Robert Lewandowski converting half-chances as to a tight defence. Half of Barcelona\u2019s league wins in that period were by a single-goal margin and 1\u20130 was the most common scoreline.<\/p>\n
Xavi himself acknowledged the frustrations: \u201cI lose my patience because I see the pass but what I think should happen doesn\u2019t happen,\u201d he admitted shortly before announcing his decision to quit in January 2024. The hierarchy persuaded him to stay, confirming that decision in April, and his dismissal was revealed in May. He often said that \u201cBarcelona is the most difficult club to manage in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
As ex-United defender Gary Neville noted on Sky Sports, \u201cBarcelona will never change for anybody,\u201d he told Sky Sports. \u201cI don\u2019t believe United should change for anybody. The club has to find a manager who has got experience and who\u2019s willing to play fast, entertaining, attacking and aggressive football.\u201d Given the current picture, any move for Xavi would require careful thought on both sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reports say Xavi is open to Manchester United, but nothing formal exists between club and coach …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,179,969],"tags":[1081,1021,1087],"class_list":["post-5889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-amorim","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}