Xavi leads Barcelona to win on debut as coach

Xavi Hernandez

Xavi Hernandez made a winning start as Barcelona coach on Saturday as a dubious Memphis Depay penalty was enough to defeat local rivals Espanyol 1-0 in La Liga.

Depay's strike at the start of the second half ensured Xavi's homecoming at Camp Nou ended in victory, but a nervy one, that will have left him under no illusions about the difficulty of the task ahead. Raul de Tomas twice struck the post late on as Espanyol spurned a flurry of late chances that really should have seen them take a draw from a game.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever