Memphis Depay has to suffer in the Spanish media after Barcelona lost 0-1 at home against Real Betis. The attacker stood within the lines of trainer Xavi’s team for ninety minutes, but did not leave a convincing impression. Thus speaks Mundo Deportivo for example of ‘his worst game in the Barcelona shirt’.
“This showed that he has a hard time playing with his back to goal as number nine,” he said Mundo Deportivo. “He couldn’t control some of the balls that he got to the right way and didn’t know how to get into space.” Sport gives Depay the lowest rating of all Barcelona players: a 4, the same score as Philippe Coutinho and substitute Frenkie de Jong. “He couldn’t continue the line of the match against Villarreal. Marc Bartra ruined his evening and barely made it into the game.”
“Time to say it: Memphis, we’ve got a problem,” headlines marca. “He started the season very well, with three goals in the first games. But his performance has been disappointing for a while now. Everyone saw it, but it was important not to destroy one of Barcelona’s few attacking forces,” writes Spain’s best-selling sports newspaper. “Against Villarreal he already had a match to forget, but with a goal at the last minute he silenced the criticism.”
Xavi focuses on Depay after the first defeat as a trainer of Barça
Xavi also commented on Memphis Depay after the duel with Real Betis.
“There are goals, which are quite important. But against Real Betis, he failed to score and confirmed that there is something wrong with him. He was invisible, didn’t create any decent chances and lost a lot of balls.” marca. “The problem is that the people in the stands are starting to realize that, they’re losing patience. The first flute concertos could already be heard. Not massively, that’s true. But the Camp Nou has its rules and they are starting to come into effect for Depay. It is clear that he is not the only scapegoat as this team’s problems are many. But Depay was brought in to make a difference and so far he hasn’t.”
ASH calls Depay a Quixote who fights against windmills. This refers to the protagonist of the novel The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote, in which the main character at a certain point gets confused and starts to mistake windmills for giants. “After two steps forward, Barcelona took another step back against Real Betis,” writes ASH. “The cause of this defeat is nevertheless not a great mystery. There is a lack of top players in the important areas of the field, that is obvious.”