After suffering a loss to Real Madrid the previous weekend, Barcelona had to face yet another challenging opponent when they headed to Reale Arena to take on Real Sociedad in gameweek 12 of the competition.

From the very first minute of play, the Basque squad was clearly the superior team, as they took the game to Barcelona, who were clearly facing an uphill task.

In point of fact, one might make the case that this is Xavi’s career-to-date’s poorest performance in terms of overall output. The mental makeup of this team appears to be quite distinct from that of teams from years gone by, which is a fortunate development.

After having a difficult first 85 minutes of the match, the Catalans began to play better and ended up creating a number of good scoring opportunities. In the end, Barcelona won the match thanks to a last-ditch header from Ronald Araujo in the 92nd minute. This goal gave Barcelona all three points.

Xavi, who was well aware of the striking contrast between the outcome of this week and the previous week, noted it out, as reported by MARCA: “Last week we deserved to win and we lost. This week we didn’t deserve to lose.” This week, our victory was unjustified; nonetheless, we still took first place. That right there is football.

We vented our frustrations on one other throughout today’s Clasico match. We triumphed in a highly significant match in spite of the fact that we did not earn it.

We are unable to play football with this equipment. We came into the match with no intensity whatsoever. In the Champions League, we will not be competitive if we continue to play like way. The first half is not even close to being good enough for us,” he continued.

Aside from the victory and the performance, the return of Pedri to the starting lineup for Barcelona in midfield was another key talking point from today. After his first appearance since matchday two, Xavi had nothing but complimentary things to say about it.

“The appearance of the team in the upcoming matches will undergo a transformation now that Pedri is back.”

The Spaniard came on as a substitute for Robert Lewandowski, who had a fairly underwhelming performance in attack thus far today. Xavi reminded the media that the Polish player had only just recently returned from recovering from an injury.

“Lewandowski is making his way back from an injury, and it will be difficult for him to maintain his peak level of fitness. We have to do a good job of handling substitutes and injuries.”

After the El Clasico that took place the previous weekend, Xavi was questioned once more about Ilkay Gundogan’s comments, and it was obvious that the coach was tired of hearing the same topic.

“I no longer have anything to say in response to Gundogan’s statements. Please stop interrogating me about it. I explained it to you the week before last. We were all lacking in seriousness. We were not deserving of the victory, and we acknowledge this.

However, he did have some kind words to say about a guy by the name of Takefuso Kubo, who has been one of the greatest players in the league so far this season and also turned in a fantastic shift today.

“Take Kubo is a player of world-class caliber, both with and without the ball. Real Sociedad is an outstanding sports organization. Imanol is an outstanding mentor and coach.