Chalobah Gallagher Partey Hannibal and more

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After the big news that Jurgen Klopp would be leaving Liverpool at the end of the season, we now know that the same will happen with Xavi at Barcelona. He officially announced that he is leaving Barca at the end of the season – it’s over. The latest result was a terrible defeat at home to Villarreal, but my sources tell me that the atmosphere has been quite toxic around the manager.

Xavi tried his best along with his staff to make things work at Barcelona, but it wasn’t working. It’s not just about Xavi, but the atmosphere around the team as well – the feeling is that since the beginning of the season, Xavi started to feel that the whole environment around the team was absolutely negative. He has now said that the club needs a change of dynamic – he considers that something was really broken between him and Barcelona.

Probably the only way to change things was by winning an important title, but they are already out of Copa del Rey, they lost the Super Cup, and they are ten points behind in La Liga, so almost impossible, and of course we know how strong the other teams in the Champions League are.

Xavi felt that the only way to change the situation around the squad was to communicate his decision for the end of the season, but also the feeling around those close to the manager was that he was probably going to be fired at the end of the season. He hopes that he can help the team in this difficult moment by making this announcement.

So, it’s over for Xavi and let’s see who’s going to be next. The name of Roberto De Zerbi will be around for Liverpool and Barcelona – it’s very easy to mention names like De Zerbi or Xabi Alonso for these clubs, but although they are strong candidates around Europe, I can guarantee that with Barcelona it will take time, because it has to be decided by Joan Laporta but also other people in the Barca board, including Deco, while in the case of Liverpool they want to find a new sporting director. My understanding is that Liverpool will work on a new director and then appoint a new manager – they have to re-structure the board and then hire the manager, whereas at Barcelona they already have Deco in place as director.

De Zerbi is…