Enjoyed this but found the idea of Xavi as a player under appreciated by stats an odd one. He’s the player, more than any other, that ‘stats’ demonstrated the value of with his consistent 100+ pass games indicating his control of games. https://twitter.com/setpiecemenu/status/1359484558958280705

The obvious point about stats is that they need to be placed in context. Context within a team, a game, a season. As a raw tool they can provide some but limited value. The whole point is that they allow a more nuanced story to be told. They aren’t the story themselves.

If anything, with Xavi, because a huge amount of the slightly deeper stats (pass volume and completion) only started to become commonplace during Barca’s pomp, it rather provoked the question, was he always that good and we hadn’t noticed because the stats weren’t available?