Barcelona sporting director Deco has firmly denied suggestions that Xavi's position as head coach of the Catalan giants is under threat.

Xavi recently signed a new contract at Camp Nou until the summer of 2025, but the team's recent underwhelming form has led to speculation surrounding his future.

The 43-year-old was seemingly under huge pressure to deliver a positive result against Porto in the Champions League on Tuesday, and the Portuguese side took the lead in the 30th minute of the match through Pepe Aquino.

Joao Cancelo levelled the scores just two minutes later, though, before Joao Felix struck the winner in the 57th minute, with the 2-1 win allowing Barcelona to book their spot in the knockout round of the competition.

Ahead of the match, Barcelona president Joan Laporta insisted that he has "full confidence" in Xavi, and Deco has now backed the club's legendary ex-midfielder amid the recent speculation.

"We don't have to ratify anything, Xavi is our coach, he has a contract and he recently renewed it. And when a club renews its coach it is because it trusts him, there is no discussion," Deco told reporters after the contest with Porto on Tuesday night.

"I understand that when we don't play well and don't win there is criticism, but that's normal. This is football and we are used to it.

"It's normal, we know that rumours are normal at Barca when they don't play well. But we know what we want on a day-to-day basis, we know that we had to bring players back, when we thought we had everyone, Gavi got injured.

"But this is football and the important thing is the day-to-day, how hard we work, how much we suffer in defeat and this is a team.

"It's normal, as the final stretch of the group stage approaches, things get complicated, but we knew the importance of this game. We came from an unexpected defeat after not playing a good game against Shakhtar, we had to react and play a good game and we did that.

"When we brought in Cancelo we knew that he had the ability to play on both flanks, he is a versatile player who can help us in that sense. It seems that the coach with [Ronald] Araujo, [Jules] Kounde, and Inigo [Martinez] wanted more defensive security.

"But in the end, the important thing is how we position ourselves on the pitch and the attitude we have. Today we played a good game from start to finish and it's normal that we had difficulties, Porto are a great team."

Barcelona will now be bidding to return to winning ways in La Liga when they welcome Atletico Madrid on Saturday evening for a huge contest.

The Catalan outfit are currently fourth in the La Liga table, picking up 31 points from their opening 14 matches of the 2023-24 campaign. body check tags ::