Xavi refusing to panic despite collapse in Barcelona's form

A month after beating Real Madrid 4-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu Barcelona have slumped to three straight home defeats in the same season for the first time ever. 

But coach Xavi has been firing out 'don't panic' messages behind the gates of the club's Joan Gamper training ground this week. 

The mission when he took over was to deliver Champions League football for next season, and the team are still on course to achieve that. And they must, or the transfer plans for the summer will be in even more disarray.

There is a feeling that the thumping win over Madrid and an extraordinary away performance to beat Napoli in the Europa League were so welcomed by supporters that everyone at the club got carried away and the aim for the season was rewritten as win the Europa League and make a title challenge.

April 14 Eintracht Frankfurt (H) L 2-3 

3-4 on aggregate; Europa League quarter-final, second leg

April 18 Cadiz (H) 0-1

April 21 Real Sociedad (A) W 1-0

April 24 Rayo Vallecano (H) L 0-1 

After defeats to lowly Cadiz, almost as lowly Rayo, and the ninth best team in Germany (albeit one transformed in Europe) that now looks like wishful thinking. 

So it's back to the original plan – finish top-four, top-two preferably so as to pocket the Spanish Super League money for next season too – 8m euros is a big sum when you are having to sell for four-times the value of the players you want to buy.

That does not mean that the last 270 minutes of football at the Camp Nou have not been a huge wake-up call. The statistics say that all is not well with project Xavi right now.

Some of the numbers will worry him more than others. Giving the ball away is what kept him awake at night as a player and as a manger it's no different. 

The team had