Xavi: Barcelona Did Not Sign Better

Xavi believes Barcelona are no longer following their footballing philosophies and says they have failed to sign better this transfer window.

Barcelona was regarded as a power house of top talents over the years, but has lost a couple of players and the Barcelona legend believes they are replacing players with substandard ones.

The Catalans were rocked by the €222 million sale of Neymar , bringing in Dembele and Paulinho and Xavi says the club must work on finding better players and look to better La Masia.

The World Cup winner told Marca: “Barca still play really good football but they could have signed better.

“They’ve fallen asleep because five or six years ago they had the best players in the world for Barca’s system. Now, for that system, they have five or six players: [Andres] Iniesta, [Jordi] Alba, [Lionel] Messi, [Gerard] Pique, Luis Suarez, [Sergio] Busquets.

“But Barca should have 11 for that system. Before, you wouldn’t see anyone play and say: ‘He’d be good at Barca.’ That’s because they were already there. They have signed players that don’t fit that system.

“The academy has to be strengthened. If there are doubts, look at what you have in-house. In Barca’s best era, at least 60 percent of the players came from the academy.”