This season, Barcelona are not in any way a formidable opponent or force to be reckoned with. They have been defeated on multiple occasions by teams who have a significantly smaller roster and players that are, without a doubt, of lower quality.

Under the tutelage of Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Tito Vilanova, and even Ernesto Valverde, Barcelona scored goals like they were going out of style while still managing to keep their defense in good shape for an extended period of time.

Xavi’s team, on the other hand, became renowned for their tenacious defense, notably during the previous campaign, thanks to the B.A.C.K. back quartet. Alejandro Balde, Andreas Christensen, Ronald Araujo, and Jules Kounde were, of course, the individuals in question here.

During the previous season of the league, Barcelona only scored 70 goals, which is less than two per game, but they conceded a record-breaking 20 goals while maintaining a weird 26 clean sheets. In total, they played 38 games in the league.

Nobody anticipated that the trend would continue throughout this season; however, criticism was leveled at Xavi for over-relying on the defense, and reinforcements were brought in at other positions on the field, such as Joao Cancelo, who is in no way a defensive fullback.

The bad news is that Barcelona have not only gotten weaker defensively, but they also are unable to score more goals than their opponents.

Only one goal is needed to win.

This season, Barcelona has taken home 12 victories out of a possible 17 titles. Two of these victories came by a score of 5-0 against Real Betis and Royal Antwerp, and they were possibly the best performances under Xavi’s regime.

On the other hand, nine of the other ten victories came by a single goal margin. Whether it was a game with a lot of goals, such as the 4-3 win against Villarreal, or a game where they needed a miracle to win, such as the 1-0 triumphs against Real Sociedad and Athletic Club, they always came out on top.

Is the problem with Barcelona’s offense that they don’t provide enough support for their goal scorers, or is the offense itself underperforming?

The arithmetic

If we look at the data, we can see that Barcelona has generated 44 clear-cut large opportunities, which equates to more than three big chances being made every game. This places them in second place for the most clear-cut big chances created in the league thus far.

Barcelona has scored only 18 of these goals while having a total of 26 opportunities. Robert Lewandowski is responsible for six of them, while Raphinha, Ferran Torres, and Fermin Lopez have each missed three of them individually.

In addition, Joao Felix and Lamine Yamal both have two, which is one more goal than they have scored so far this year.

A wide range of authors and creators

However, Barcelona does have a number of different creators available to them, possibly more so than they did in the previous season, when the load was primarily placed on the wingers.

While Robert Lewandowski and Pedri had individually notched up 11 opportunities, Raphinha and Ousmane Dembele had combined to produce 26 excellent scoring opportunities for the team. To be fair, the absence of Jordi Alba is a significant loss from the flank position because he was directly responsible for 12 of them while appearing in only 24 games.

This time around, Barcelona also have Ilkay Gundogan and Joao Cancelo on their roster, both of whom are seen as highly sophisticated creators in their own right.

The originator of prime time. (Image courtesy of Getty)

The former has contributed to the club in a manner that has been satisfactory thus far, producing 3.28 xA and five huge opportunities, which is the most of any player on the team.

On the other hand, there is a sharp decline following that. Despite the fact that Frenkie de Jong has been sidelined by injury for the past two months, he is now in second place on the list with 1.58 xA and one huge opportunity produced.

Raphinha has only generated two huge opportunities so far this season, while Alejandro Balde has only created one despite finishing the previous season with six assists to his name and seven big chances created. Pedri and Lamine Yamal both have set up four big chances, but Raphinha is only at two so far this season.

The inferences drawn

Even if it is obvious that Barcelona does not always have solutions to the problems that they face on the pitch, they do have the professionals in all positions who are able to devise solutions.

Even though some of the players, like Balde and Raphinha, are not contributing as much as they should be, their presence on the team is still crucial.

Finishing is something that the squad as a whole needs to work on improving, especially now that their defense is not as good as it once was and cannot save them from difficult games.