There are two ways of looking at this. First, Xavi must have really liked what he saw in the game against Benfica, because he barely touched Dembele’s team and a couple of residual changes at the end. Second, the coach has little faith in what is on the bench. Players such as Coutinho, Luuc de Jong and Ricky Puig were left without a game for a minute, which demonstrates the coach’s uncertainty.
Xavi’s stand on the situation
The coach did not address any of the three against Benfica with obvious disbelief. He made just three substitutions against the Portuguese, two towards the end. In his first press conference before the game against Espanyol, Xavi said that the Dutch striker is “right for him” at the moment. He meant constant losses at the front. However, despite the fact that Memphis showed clear signs of fatigue in the latter part of the game, they did not have it. Every day it becomes more and more obvious that Barca will try to put him on the January market, although for this they will have to rely on Sevilla. The midfielder Matadepera also lacked minutes. Whoever thought that with the arrival of Xavi, his position in the team would change, until he had to wait. The reliability of players like Busquets, Gavi, Nico or De Jong, until Pedri arrives, leaves him no choice. He did not use his minutes in Vigo against Celta, nor against Espanyol. This prevented him from spending a few minutes against Benfica. Xavi expects some improvement in his positional play before giving him a chance. However, the case of Coutinho and De Jong seems difficult.
Future of Xavi in Barcelona
We haven’t seen much from Xavi but one thing stays certain he is a insanely powerful unit and he can be a great coach in all ways, only thing we can do at this point is to wait and see Xavi shine, we have to understand the thing that he needs some time to get used to the team itself.