Barcelona are on an 11-game unbeaten run since Xavi announced he is leaving

Barcelona are giving serious consideration to the possibility of keeping Xavi as manager beyond the end of this season after an impressive run of 11 games unbeaten. But his revival roadshow stops off at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday night and defeat against Luis Enrique Martinez will change all that.

It’s Luis Enrique that Barça president Joan Laporta would put in charge if he could pick any coach he wanted. The 53-year-old, who won the treble at Barcelona in 2015, is open to the idea of a return, but not this summer in the middle of his two-year contract in Paris.

So Barça are actively sounding out alternatives to Xavi, or at least they were until the team’s form improved so much that keeping him in charge went back to being the most viable option.

It was just before the international break when Barcelona had their ‘magic week’. They knocked Napoli out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage and then thrashed Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid 3-0 away in La Liga.

They now look set to finish second, qualifying for the Spanish Super Cup which amounts to an extra €5million (£4.3m) in the club’s coffers. If they win the Clasico at the end of the month they could even give La Liga something very much resembling a title race with the gap closed to just five points.

Xavi says a cloud lifted over the team when he announced he was going at the end of the season and that his decision to stand down was the smart move for that very reason.

It’s debatable whether or not he really did stand down. The announcement that he was going this summer came after a humbling 5-3 defeat at home to Villarreal. And listening to president Laporta and Director of Football Deco talk about the decision it sounds far more like a case of him avoiding