Xavi spoke at a press conference this Saturday on the eve of the game against Osasuna. These were his impressions.
Different style of defending
Osasuna has different ways of playing. Could the party be different from El Sadar? It adapts to different systems, with defenses of five and four. On the first lap he squeezed us up for a while, other times they waited for us. They have a very vertical team. It’s a difficult game. It is an aggressive team that is confident and in a comfortable situation. It’s going to cost us. It will be a difficult match. Why, when Busquets is not there, does he opt for Frenkie de Jong instead of Nico? At certain times it can be Nico. I don’t see Pedri as a pivot, but Nico and De Jong. Nico can play there of course. But he has the conditions to divide and reach the goal. I am not in favor of saying that Nico cannot play pivot.
Starter team will play against Osasuna?
You have to decide. For sanctions, tiredness, inconvenience. If we had won 1-0 or 2-0 against Galatasaray, we would have approached the match in Istanbul in the same way. Do not vary too much the planning of the week. Are you going to protect Araujo and Eric, who are warned? We will decide. Sometimes I choose the center backs according to the rival’s profile. If it’s a larger Bayern-type rival, then I may need more size. Depends on the circumstances. But we can choose in defense. There are four guarantee centers and we can choose. What conclusions have you drawn from last Thursday? We needed to attack better. When the game ended, my feeling is that we should have understood the position better with the interiors. Tactical circumstances that we must rectify. We were not fine, especially in the first part. You have to be self-critical. It didn’t give us a win but I think we could have done it. You said you would watch Madrid-PSG.