2023-09-04 10:25:51
“Sometimes, we are too demanding with Robert.” Until Xavi, the Barça coach, aware of the murmurs raised by the irregular performance of Lewandowski, the nine for whom Barça paid 45 million and five in variables to Bayern a summer ago, has had to raise his voice. His start to the season is camouflaged, however, by the two goals that, according to the coach, have “given four points” to the Barça team.
Opportunistic goals, such as the 3-4 win against Villarreal, taking advantage of the fact that Lamine Yamal’s shot was deflected by Jörgensen before the rebound of the stick left it at the Pole’s feet. Goals like the Sadar penalty, provoked by Lewnadowski together with the expulsion of Catena and marked by Lewandowskiafter the suspense with which he adorns -short and slow career, before the little jump before the hit that tests the heart of the culé- before the shot.
without much company upstairs
But even the striker himself, who has just turned 35 and is living the second of the four seasons he signed with Barça, is restless. He has already publicly complained that he is not backed in attack. The formula of the ‘four midfielders’, already established, almost definitively by Xavi, leaves him an orphan at the top, only accompanied by a striker on the right wing. Before; Raphinha; now Lamine Yamal.
The left flank belongs, for the moment, to Balde, who comes and goes, unfolding his functions. Winger when he has to defend, inside or left winger when the team deploys in attack because Gavi, who initially appears in the drawing in that area, has other tasks.
“We talked with Robert this week about playing simpler, easier, more positional. Maybe he wouldn’t touch as many balls, but he should be more in the place, more positional”
Barcelona coach
This has modified the habitat of the Pole, with whom the coach spoke this week, trying to mitigate his discontent and, above all, to find a solution to these problems. “We talked about him playing simpler, easier, more positional, although he wouldn’t touch as many balls,” revealed Xavi after the long-suffering win over Osasuna.
And in Pamplona that more static version of the Pole was seen, who did not come to the center of the field to receive balls or intervene in the collective circuit of offensive play. Wait, let them get to you, Xavi came to tell him. And the numbers (32 touches on the ball) reveal that change.
To understand it, Ter Stegen, for example, touched the ball 36 times. And Lamine, who played 69 minutes when he was replaced by Ferran Torres, slightly more than the Pole: 34. Between the three of them they did not reach, for example, the hyperactivity and dynamism that Frenkie de Jong projected, with 135 touches and a hit average in the high pass: 107 good passes out of 115 (93%).
5 goals in 4 days in the 22-23 season; now only two
In the comparison with last year, where Barça played with a traditional 4-3-3, escorted by Lewandowski by Raphinha (right) and Dembéle), he loses out. Then the Pole added five goals (two against Real, two against Valladolid and one against Sevilla) in the first four days of the 22-23 League. He came in like a cannon on ‘nine’. He now has two goals (Villarreal and Osasuna, from a penalty) in this start of the championship.
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“We can’t talk about Robert being in a bad moment of form,” said Xavi, aware that one of the pillars of his Barça cannot be doubted. A guy who, furthermore, does not have a clear replacement in that short squad (19 players) that has remained after the market closed. He can play Ferran Torres for ‘nine’. Also João Félix, as the coach does not stop remembering since the Portuguese has arrived on loan from Atlético.
But neither has that predatory and accurate air that has always accompanied the Pole. His replacement, who is expected at best in January, is Vitor Roque, a young Brazilian who is scoring goals for Atlético Paranaense. “Even if he hadn’t scored, he would have played a great game too,” Xavi stressed, supporting the Pole, admitting that he was “especially happy” because “he always works, is always there and is Lewandowski, our goalscorer.”
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