Xavi Hernandez criticises Barcelona ruthlessness as predicted by Ronald Araujo

Barcelona managed to outlast Real Sociedad on Wednesday night, beating a ten-man side 1-0 with a goal from Ousmane Dembele. Although Barcelona had the better of the play, the Txuri-Urdin kept themselves in it for the whole match and had good chances to equalise in the final ten minutes.

After the match, Ronald Araujo commented that his manager Xavi Hernandez ‘will no doubt criticise us for not killing the game’.

As it happened, he was right. Following the match, Xavi was keen to focus on the positives as well as the negatives, but was not happy with their attitude after Barcelona went a goal up.

“Most things are positive. After the goal, we spent 5 or 10 minutes relaxing and that can’t be. We lack that aggressiveness in front of goal. Today we gave them the ball at a kick-off and we can’t give it away. There were 60 brilliant minutes, but when we score it seems that it’s over and it’s not. We have to go for 2-0, 3-0… and another. We have to be more aggressive and ambitious when the game requires it.”

Marca reported his words as he went on to say that Barcelona were suffering too much just to get the win.

“That’s my feeling and on the day against Getafe… games that Ter Stegen or a defender saved us at 1-0… The only negative feeling is this. We have dominated a La Real team that had just won nine games. We are in January where we wanted to be, top of La Liga, in the Copa del Rey and with the Supercup. Things to improve, effectiveness and killing games.”

Barcelona have won five games 1-0 this season and several more tight ones too. Despite Robert Lewandowski’s remarkable record in La Liga, the Blaugrana have not been ruthless in front of goal, frequently passing up several opportunities.