FC Barcelona's season has been a roller coaster: they improved after a slow start, dipped in October and November, then put together one of the club's best winning runs (11), but February again exposed defensive shortcomings. Under Hansi Flick the team must keep progressing if it wants to fight for trophies in the decisive part of the campaign.
According to a report by 'DATA Foot', among the eleven teams with the highest UEFA rankings Barça concedes the most scoring chances against: 95 across all competitions (LaLiga, Champions League, Copa and Supercup). From the 38 matches played so far that yields an average of 2.5 chances conceded per game — by both measures the Catalans top this particular ranking. Close behind are Chelsea (92, 2.24), Real Madrid (82, 2.28) and Manchester City (80, 1.95). At the other end, the teams conceding the fewest chances are Inter (35, 0.97), Arsenal (46, 1.10) and Paris Saint-Germain (60, 1.71).
Offensively Barça has been prolific: the team has scored 100 goals across competitions, and six players — Ferran Torres, Lamine Yamal, Lewandowski, Raphinha, Rashford and Fermín — have reached or surpassed ten goals. That makes Barcelona the second-highest scoring team among clubs from the 15 major European leagues (tied with Danish Midtjylland), only behind Bayern Munich (118). Nevertheless, Barça have conceded 46 goals — one of the higher totals among Europe's top clubs; only Newcastle (61), Napoli (57), Tottenham (54), Liverpool and Manchester United (53) and Chelsea (50) have worse records. At the other extreme are Arsenal and Bayern (33), Inter (34) and Manchester City (36).
Signing goalkeeper Joan García has increased security between the posts, but the team looks more vulnerable in defence and opponents reach Barça's box more often than in Flick's first season. That defensive frailty is one of the coach's pending tasks for the remaining months. The 'DATA Foot' report includes a sample of statistics for the eleven highest-ranked UEFA teams: chances conceded, average per match and goals conceded.
