Xavi ready to manage Barcelona as pressure increases on Valverde

Barcelona legend, Xavi Hernandez, has said he is ready to manage former team-mates like Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets at the club.

Current Barca boss, Ernesto Valverde, is under pressure at Camp Nou. Despite winning LaLiga last season, their Champions League collapse at Liverpool has left a sour taste and they have started the new campaign in disastrous form.

They lost 2-0 at newly-promoted Granada on Saturday and speculation has begun to circulate suggesting Valverde’s days in the job are numbered.

Xavi, 39, is currently manager of Al-Sadd in Qatar. His side have won all three of their league fixtures this season, scoring 13 goals in the process and are in the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League.

“I don’t know if it will be a bridge to Barca,” he told Catalan newspaper Ara.

“The only thing that worries me now is doing well here, winning titles and making mistakes in some aspects to learn for the future.

“It wouldn’t be a problem [to manage former team-mates]. I know what Leo is like, and Luis [Suarez], Busquets, Jordi [Alba], [Gerard] Pique or Sergi [Roberto].

“I know how they train, their capacity for leadership, I can tell if they are sad or angry. I hope as a coach I could have three, five, eight or 10 players that I already knew and that I already had a good relationship with.

“[Messi] is a player who, if you convince him, he can even be a brilliant defender. He has physical and mental speed. He has everything. If you convince him to run, what will the others do? They will run twice as much.”