Speaking in an interview with MARCA, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has hailed his Barcelona counterpart Xavi Hernandez, claiming that the Catalans needed someone like him to take the club back to success.<\/p>\n
Xavi took over the reins at Barcelona in November 2021, replacing Ronald Koeman. At the time when he arrived, the Catalans were in a difficult position. But the 43-year-old led the team to a runners-up finish in La Liga in his debut season.<\/p>\n
Xavi followed it up by guiding Barcelona to the La Liga title as well as the Spanish Super Cup this past season, ending the Catalans\u2019 drought in the Spanish top flight.<\/p>\n
The manager has come in for plenty of praise from his players, club president Joan Laporta, and several others, with Arteta also now joining in to hail the Barcelona head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have known him since we played together at Bar\u00e7a. Only by knowing his character and how he feels about the game, it was clear to me that Bar\u00e7a needed a figure like him,\u201d Arteta told MARCA.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has been able to withstand the pressure and has been true to his ideas, always defending the club and the players. The team has been very reliable all year,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Arteta himself has done quite well at Arsenal, who missed out on the Premier League title by whiskers this past season. There have been talks about the former midfielder being a future managerial candidate for Barcelona.<\/p>\n
As such, the Gunners\u2019 boss was asked if he would like to manage a La Liga club like Bar\u00e7a or Real Madrid in the future, to which he replied:<\/p>\n
\u201cSpain is my country. I have been away for many years and at some point it could be an option to return to La Liga and have different experiences. But now\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaking in an interview with MARCA, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has hailed his Barcelona counterpart Xavi Hernandez, claiming that the Catalans needed someone like him to take the club back to success. Xavi took over the reins at Barcelona in November 2021, replacing Ronald Koeman. At the time when he arrived, the Catalans were in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1246,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions\/1246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}