Barcelona burns: The Jeddah crisis that sentenced Valverde Barcelona An earthquake has been triggered

Barcelona's elimination in the Supercopa de Espana semi-finals on Thursday evening has sparked a crisis at the Camp Nou.

With 10 minutes to play the Catalans held a 2-1 lead over Atletico Madrid but yet another collapse saw them throw that away in the space of five minutes and lose 3-2.

The squad returned on Friday afternoon, after RAC1 had revealed that Eric Abidal and Oscar Grau had met with Xavi Hernandez in Qatar and while the club say the official reason for their visit was to see Ousmane Dembele, they haven't denied meeting with their former player.

Ernesto Valverde's fate appears to have been sealed by the loss, but the crisis at the club has more layers than his inevitable dismissal.

Josep Maria Bartomeu and the club

The president has always been Valverde's biggest supporter and it was him who decided to stick with the coach after the humiliations in Rome and Anfield.

Criticism of Valverde has always existed within the club but until they they had been appeased by the fact that his strength comes in the dressing room.

No Barcelona coach has been sacked mid-season since Louis van Gaal in 2003, but that might change this year.

Valverde, oblivious

The coach appears completely numb to the noise surrounding him, which is significant given he was booed in Jeddah before the game.

He doesn't think about it though, only looking ahead to the next game every day and thinking about winning titles.

But the meeting with Xavi is a big black mark against him. It's impossible to imagine that happening when Pep Guardiola or Luis Enrique were at the club.

The dressing room is with him

Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba are on his side, and even after the Anfield collapse they publicly stood by him.

Messi said that the result in Liverpool had nothing to do with Valverde, and Suarez absolved him of blame for Thursday.

Designated players

For 75 minutes Barcelona were one thing and for the final 15 they were something very different. Messi accused the team of making childish mistakes and he was right.

The fans' feeling

MARCA's own survey results - with over 80,000 votes - show that the fans hold the players responsible more than they do the coach.

Blame was attributed in a 58-42 percent split for the defeat against Atletico.

Most do feel as though keeping him was a mistake for this season though (70 percent) although at this point his continuity (47 percent) is preferred over his dismissal (39 percent).

In terms of replacements, Xavi Hernandez is favourite with 28 percent of the votes ahead of Erik ten Hag's 22 percent and Ronald Koeman's 17 percent.