Xavi hits out at the press after slim LaLiga win over Alavés

The Catalan coach blamed the press for Barça’s struggles, saying that the coverage of his side has been “exaggerated and very critical”.

Surely animated after the win and liberated after suffering a huge amount of tension above an beyond normal levels in the LaLiga game against Alavés, Xavi took shots against the “exaggerated and very critical” press once the final whistle blew.

His words don’t surprise the people who know him. The coach is usually very aware of what is being said about him and especially the messages from the media. Xavi felt the heat of the spotlight after the loss to Real Madrid and things got even hotter after terrible consecutive performances from him side against Real Sociedad and Shakhtar Donetsk. Two games with different outcomes but the same path taken: suffering.

Catalan media outlet SER Cataluya even revealed that last Thursday the directors who had flown to Germany for the UEFA Champions League group stage game were critical of the lineup out by the coach, one which in their view impeded Barça from winning and therefore pocketing more than €2 million in qualification rewards.

It doesn’t stop there, as one director even commented that “it was a good thing the President [Joan Laporta] didn’t travel”, given the presumed anger that would have filled his frame that would have come with watching the crumbling performance live.

Xavi cut an uncomfortable figure post-game against Alavés, saying he had isolated himself from the media since Thursday yet being “without a doubt” sure that their criticism of the side had affected his players (”they were more nervous than usual given everything that had gone on around them”).

He was the first person to publicly mention Gündogan’s mistake for the goal conceded