Xavi’s three instructions to Barcelona players after reviewing Inter Milan game – report

Barcelona lost their second game of the season when they fell to a 1-0 defeat against Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League earlier this week.

While the result was influenced by some dodgy officiating on the night, Barça themselves were far from their best and failed to impose themselves and break open Inter Milan’s defence, despite dominating possession, especially in the first half.

As per a report from Mundo Deportivo, Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez and his coaching staff reviewed footage from the match against Inter Milan ahead of the weekend clash against La Liga.

The Blaugrana will take on the Galician outfit at Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday, following which they have two crucial encounters against Inter Milan and Real Madrid. And Xavi wants the team to be in a good moment going into those contests.

To that end, having reviewed the Inter Milan match, the Barcelona manager passed on three specific instructions to his players for them to be more effective on the field going forward.

For starters, Xavi wants his Barcelona players to open up play more and attack from the wide areas. He is said to have encouraged his stars to get into 1v1 duels as well.

At the same time, the head coach wants his players to not always look to Ousmane Dembele to do so. The Frenchman saw a lot of the ball against Inter but was not effective enough as Inter did a good job against him.

Secondly, the Barcelona boss wants his players to attack free spaces with more impact and intent, as he wishes for them to take advantage of any gap left by the opposition. It is something that he expects from his wide players as well as the interior midfielders.

And, lastly, Xavi is said to have instructed his players to be brave and take more shots from outside the box, especially against teams like Inter Milan who defend deep.

In addition to these three points, the coaching staff also told players that it is okay to go off the script, be unpredictable and try something different against teams that are hard to break down, as was the case versus Inter Milan.