There had been plenty of talk this week which indicated Ronald Koeman had three games to save his job, and the expectation was that he needed to win tonight against Rayo Vallecano, at the weekend against Alaves and then in the Champions League vs Dynamo Kyiv.
His side has fallen at the first hurdle tonight after losing to Rayo, and the situation is possibly even grimmer than the league tables suggest.
They sit 9th in La Liga and dropping into the Europa League is very possible after poor results in the Champions League, but the issue is that the team just appears to be so flat, the players aren’t playing for the manager and once they go behind the heads go down.
Only they will know if they’re just going through the motion until the manager is sacked, but something surely has to change.
Caught Offside understands that the Barcelona board are going to meet tonight to discuss the manager’s future, so it won’t be a shock if he is relieved on his duties.
Realistically there’s no real argument for keeping him on, so it now just comes down to deciding if they can afford to sack him, while also figuring out who would actually come in.
Xavi seems to be the manager-in-waiting at some point but the timing may not suit him, so it could even be a situation where another caretaker is brought in until the end of the season, or perhaps they may decide to put it all on the line to bring in someone like Antonio Conte, but that could cause even more mayhem in the long-term.
Either way, it’s hard to see how Koeman keeps his job for much longer.