The end is nigh for Xavi. It could even come on Sunday night if Barcelona lose the Clasico and slip 11 points behind Real Madrid.

A defeat at the Santiago Bernabeu would leave Barça with a six-game run-in and only second place to play for. 

They need to finish second for the €5million [£4.27m] they will earn from the Spanish Super Cup, but chasing runners-up positions is not what the club is about and May will be a long month mainly spent speculating over who the new manager will be.

Circumstances beyond his control were, in part, his undoing on Tuesday night. 

Ronald Araujo's red card made things very difficult for Barcelona but his decision to take off Barça's most dangerous forward, the 16-year-old winger Lamine Yamal, and the fact that he then got sent off – his third red as Barça coach – opened the floodgates back up to wave after wave of 'he's out of his depth' criticism.

Xavi imploded on the touchline as Barcelona crashed out of the Champions League to PSG 

'Barcelona will try to win the competition next season,' he said after the game clearly distancing himself from the whispers prior to the game, that have now completely disappeared, that he might stay in charge next season going back on the decision, made with the club, to quit this summer.

The cracks in the group began to appear after the defeat to PSG. Xavi blamed the referee while his senior players blamed each other.

'The referee is very very bad,' said Xavi. But Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen said of the red card: 'It's one of those decisions that can be made.'

Midfielder Ilkay Gundogan went further saying of Ronald Araujo: 'You have to be clear that you will get to the ball. If not, then give our goalkeeper a chance. So many minutes with ten killed us.'

In many respects it still seems harsh that Xavi will carry the can for what looks like being a trophyless season. He has got plenty right. 

The reinvention of Andreas Christensen as a holding midfielder definitely has his prints on it and he should take huge credit for the emergence of 16-year-old Yamal and 17-year-old Pau Cubarsi.

Rash moments of immaturity from his players cost him against PSG. Araujo should have been more careful. And Joao Cancelo's foul on Ousmane Dembele was even more reckless and at such a terrible time in the game.

And wasn't it Xavi who always insisted that Dembele was worth hanging on to when too many others said he should be sold? 

No one did more than the French winger to put Barcelona out of the Champions League across the two legs.

Barcelona might miss Xavi when he's gone, but it does now seem that he will be gone. What happens on Sunday might dictate when.

The worst scenario is that Real Madrid win easily and open up that 11 point gap at the top. Barça as an institution will need a topic to distract from their great rivals procession to the title – and speeding up Xavi's departure would certainly do that.

More likely is that he stays until the end of the season, and is allowed to leave with his head held high. He deserves at least that. 

He won the title last season in his first full season in charge and this year he has had to deal with the team playing away from the Camp Nou. 

Would things have been different in the old stadium had they played there last night? 'Yes' was his emphatic answer. 

And he's right – 96,000 in the cauldron that was the Camp Nou would have made it a very different experience for PSG. 

The Olympic Stadium at Montjuic is an open Athletics arena with fans far from the pitch and it only holds 50,000.

It doesn't help Xavi that a former Barcelona coach, and the man president Joan Laporta would love to be back in charge, Luis Enrique came out on top in the tie.

Now Xavi has to go up against another managerial giant. If he outfoxes Carlo Ancelotti on Sunday then there remains a glimmer of hope that Barça could make a title race of the last six games. 

It will then be a long goodbye for the 44-year-old. What seems clear after Tuesday night is that it definitely is goodbye.