The performing and the season from Ansu Fati are not being good. Barça’s winger is not happy and he shows that on his face in every LaLiga’s fixture. Barça fans found in Ansu Fati their reference after the exit of the best player in history of the club, Leo Messi, but the injuries have stopped the young striker, whose level is currently too low.

Ansu Fati made his official debut with the first team of FC Barcelona on August 25th 2019. He wore number 31 on his back, played his first minutes against Real Betis and became the second youngest debutant from Barça at LaLiga.
His beginning at Barça was a dreamed one, as he beat up to eight records in the 19/20 season, scored eight goals and gave one assist in 33 games, and established himself officially in the first team.
However, Ansu Fati was going to suffer a completely turn shortly. He became a first team player the following season and he began on his best shape, as he scored five goals and gave two assists only in the first 10 games of the campaign. However, on November 7th 2020, precisely against the team he made his debut against, Real Betis, everything changed.
Ansu had to leave the field seriously injured at the end of the first half and just a few hours later, the diagnosis confirmed an injury on the left knee meniscus that prevented him from playing for the rest of the season.

Nothing has improved for the young striker since then, as he had to undergo surgery four times. His constant setbacks and muscular injuries did not allow him to play regularly in the following season, when he inherited Messi’s ’10’, which was a sign of confidence on him by both the board of directors and the coaching staff as the new captain of Barça’s ship.
However, the big doubts on Ansu Fati have showed up during this season. Injuries now finally seem to have faded away totally and his performing is below the expectations. Even though he has already played 46 games, he has only scored seven goals and given four assists. He has disappeared from the starting XI line-ups and he is the 16th of the roster with the most minutes played (1.676′).

This must be added to the high competition on the offensive area from FC Barcelona. Raphinha, Dembelé and Ferrán are the most common wingers to be in Xavi’s line-ups and they have all played more minutes than Fati.
Furthermore, we must also take into account the starting arise of Lamine Yamal, who has already made his debut with the first team only at the age of 15 and he is joining in the last call-ups, which is not helping at all to Ansu Fati’s playing time.
Maybe a little hope for Ansu came when he was called up for the squad of Luis Enrique for the Qatar World Cup. However, that turned out to another failure for him, as he only played 22 minutes in the defeat against Japan. “I would have preferred Ansu to not go to the World Cup”, his father Bori Fati said to COPE in March.

Now Xavi and a big part of Barça fans seem to have lost the confidence in Ansu Fati and, according to Sport, Barça would be willing to consider offers on him in the next summer transfer market.
However, and despite everything, the intention from the ’10’ is still to succeed at Barça. His father admitted it himself in the previous mentioned interview: “Ansu wants to stay at Barça. If it was my call, I would take him somewhere else, but he wants to stay at Barça. Ansu does not want to sign for another club, but I want to see him succeeding. The first thing that Ansu told to agent Jorge Mendes was that he loves Barça and he is not leaving. I just had a different perspective, but he told me: ‘Dad, I do not agree with you. I want to be here”.

The future of Ansu Fati is unknown. If the situation does not change, he should move somewhere else to get a new role and earn some minutes and confidence in order to show that scoring ability that he had in his first seasons at FC Barcelona.
He is extremely young and he has more than enough time to show his talent at the Spotify Camp Nou Stadium, where he is currently not getting the needed confidence to succeed.
Translated by Guillermo Bermejo.
Main image: @FCBarcelona_es.