Granit Xhaka: Swiss Army Knife or Blunt Tool?

[drippin]

When @Manberg and @drippin see Xhaka play

When other fans see Xhaka play

Stats won’t change either’s opinion.

Haha, all I have said is that Xhaka is praised by Arteta & performed well under him, and stats are overall similar to Ceballos, both having different strengths as players. I have even agreed that Ceballos has higher ceiling.

And said that we need to upgrade on starting quality (Partey a great start for it), so that Xhaka will be used only as a rotational option, until we have got enough starting quality that has adjusted to EPL like Xhaka, so then we could sell him. All depending on how Arteta sees Xhaka in the future.

Now his haters try to push narrative that I somehow worship Xhaka. Anyone can look my earlier posts.

 

[Big Poppa]

Haha, all I have said is that Xhaka is praised by Arteta & performed well under him, and stats are overall similar to Ceballos, both having different strengths as players. I have even agreed that Ceballos has higher ceiling.

And said that we need to upgrade on starting quality (Partey a great start for it), so that Xhaka will be used only as a rotational option, until we have got enough starting quality that has adjusted to EPL like Xhaka, so then we could sell him. All depending on how Arteta sees Xhaka in the future.

Now his haters try to push narrative that I somehow worship Xhaka. Anyone can look my earlier posts.

I’m just teasing you pal. Poor @Manberg has been fighting a lonely fight @Erlis vanished

 

[Football Manager]

Jesus f*cking Christ

okay first off - why do you even watch us? Who in this squad do you even like? Do you even like the premiership?
Why do we have to recruit French/Spanish/Brazilian why not the best players for the job?

secondly- tonali/roca/cuisance are never coming here so you need to get over it. We have our own 20 year olds, those other guys can stay in midtable teams in farmers leagues.

thirdly - you’re never gonna get a team of 11 pure technicians, it’s a contact sport which means athleticism kinda comes into play.

Lastly- do you even realise the Brexit struggle ball Arteta has been implementing with our team? You got a lot more waiting to do for that tika taka mate, not everything is because of the players.

Arteta is his own man he’s not Pep jr. He has his own ideas and his own experiences (or lack there of).
Pep has been in the game years and years - with youth teams, B teams, senior squads - you can’t just assume all that knowledge and experience has been transferred onto Arteta just because he laid out cones for him.

If you like Barcelona so much, just watch Barcelona

How about Neves? Or who would you suggest to play in that pirlo/alonso role?

1) Why would I not watch Arsenal if I’m a fan?

2) I like the team. Not any particular player stand out the most. We have lost all the magical players in our squad like Sanchez/Van Persie/Henry/Bergkamp....that I will immediately say I am a fan without even thinking.

3) That’s just examples. Brazil/France/Spain did produce a lot of best talents in the world. And they are usually technically gifted.

4) Why would they not come if we work on our transfers? Cuisance in mid-table team? You do know a lot of big clubs are after them because they have great talent in them. If you don’t like them then how about Neves? He is in the PL. If not then who is going to make those 30 yards diagonal passes to play the Xavi/alonso/pirlo/Carrick role? Why do British fans hate this role so much?

5) Can a player with good technique/skills also have good stamina/strengths/pace...? Henry/Mbappe/Lewandowski/KDB.....a lot of world class players have good pace and body strength too. Do you think iniesta/silva is as slow as mertezacker?

6) Arteta has said it before what kind of football he wanted to play. I’m sure what stopping us from playing that is that we have too many non-skillful players in our squad.

7) You can see Arteta is using positional play in its setup. Just like Pep, his tactical plan is extremely detailed and well calculated. May be pep is more attacking as he has the right players available, and Arteta is more on the defensive side. But the principle is the same. They both use positional play. That all players will be assigned to occupy a certain area of the pitch in certain situations. And how they move is well trained and pre-instructed.

8) Barcelona don’t even played that way these days.

@Macho

@Macho

@Big Poppa

 

[Macho]

How about Neves? Or who would you suggest to play in that pirlo/alonso role?

I don't have any suggestions I was just agreeing with Trilly that some were quick to jump on a bad international result.

 

[Football Manager]

I don't have any suggestions I was just agreeing with Trilly that some were quick to jump on a bad international result.

Wrong quote, my bad.
Now it should be correct.

 

[Football Manager]

To all Xhaka haters. As I’ve said here, getting rid of Xhaka is fine. The question is, who are we going to replace him with. No one of you have come up with a solution. At least I have suggested Cuisance, Roca and Tonali.

I do see xhaka’s weaknesses. We can definitely make an upgrade on him. But we should not replace him with ceballos/partey. We should replace him with tonali/roca/cuisance, so that we would still have someone making those diagonal passes (but with less of xhaka’s weaknesses). Ceballos can be our iniesta/kaka, Partey can be our defensive Y.Toure/gattusso, and tonali/roca/cuisance can be our xavi/pirlo.We need a player who plays that xavi role in our team.

(By the way. I'm talking about the guardiola’s Barcelona. In order to make possession/beautiful football works properly, you need the right tactics and the right players.)

After replacing Xhaka, we may look to get aouar, an upgrade on ceballos (or to make him a rotation option), and then find a destroyer type of midfielder to backup Partey.

We can then ship out all the unskillful/the not good at general play/the not good on the ball players (Auba/laca/Özil/willock/nketiah...), and get some spainish/french/brazilian players (A younger version of Firmino/Van Persie/Benzema to be our striker. And two younger version of douglas costa to be our wingers).

It’s a dream coming true to have guardiola mkii as our manager, who is brilliant in tactical knowledge. I would like us to play like 07-08 arsenal (but with better defenders, better bench players, without walcott/adebayor/gallas, and with a better tactical system instead of a “free” system) or 09-10 barcelona.

I have been waiting for years and years for us to play beautiful football and ship out all of our unskillful players. I’m sick of watching Walcott/Chamberlain/Giroud/podolski/mkhi... and in recent years auba/laca/Özil (I was against the signing of these three players from day one). We need more of hleb/Sanchez/nasri/arshavin/Cazorla/fabregas/van Persie .......We need to claim back the identity that we played the most entertaining football in Europe.

Luckily, our future looks bright. Seems that I will finally get what I wanted. Because:
1) we have a true tactician as our manager
2) we improved on our video/data analysis
3) our transfer targets are the exact type of player I wanted. (skillful players like Aouar, coutinho, willian, ceballos....and our defenders signings are all good on the ball) This also suggested that we will play entertaining football in the near future.
4) our youth players, especially the u18 are more technical and skillful than ever. We have John Jules, Lewis, matt smith, cottrell, cirjan, patino, hutchinson, salah, flores......

I just want to say this to the people who keep telling me that my idea was wrong: I’m winning here. Skilful/possession/beautiful/entertaining football is coming back soon. 10 years of waiting and finally I’m going to get what I wanted.

 

[drippin]

To all Xhaka haters. As I’ve said here, getting rid of Xhaka is fine. The question is, who are we going to replace him with. No one of you have come up with a solution. At least I have suggested Cuisance, Roca and Tonali.

Ideally it would be a left-footed midfielder, or someone who is two-footed. I think it's not as big of a must in midfield as in CB role, but Arteta might favour it.

Roca is gone to Bayern. I'm interested to hear suggestions, I don't have any right now.

 

[Macho]

To all Xhaka haters. As I’ve said here, getting rid of Xhaka is fine. The question is, who are we going to replace him with. No one of you have come up with a solution. At least I have suggested Cuisance, Roca and Tonali.

My thing has always been get someone competent to play along side Xhaka first and see how he does. I've had it up to my eyeballs with Xhaka if I am honest, I am happy to move on from him but that doesn't necessarily mean he is bad that could be preference.

We have partnered him up with wastemen or makeshift for a long time. We have at least tried to address this now.

If it goes how I imagine it will, he can do the DLP role just fine and he won't be a pressing concern to replace.

 

[Taneruit]

So, his first stint as official captain of Switzerland is nearly over. Results wise terrible, performance wise decent (very decent at times). (Except for the Spain game which was the result of negative tactics more than anything)

Nearly all the goals conceded were individual errors and we created lots of good chances that sadly didn't get finished. Can't complain too much.

 

[RunTheTrap]

Ideally it would be a left-footed midfielder, or someone who is two-footed. I think it's not as big of a must in midfield as in CB role, but Arteta might favour it.

Roca is gone to Bayern. I'm interested to hear suggestions, I don't have any right now.

Camivinga. The kid can do everything, left footed and a Gooner. I would happily spend big money on him. He could learn a lot from Partey, Arteta and Cellabos if we keep him.

 

[RunTheTrap]

My thing has always been get someone competent to play along side Xhaka first and see how he does. I've had it up to my eyeballs with Xhaka if I am honest, I am happy to move on from him but that doesn't necessarily mean he is bad that could be preference.

We have partnered him up with wastemen or makeshift for a long time. We have at least tried to address this now.

If it goes how I imagine it will, he can do the DLP role just fine and he won't be a pressing concern to replace.

I disagree, I think three different managers tried their best to accommodate Xhaka in varying degrees and it has limited us severely. Xhaka has played in the double pivot with Cazorla, Wilshere, Ramsey, Coquelin, Elneny, Torreria, Cellabos and Guendouzi in numerous systems. Most of these options are good footballers in their own right. He has had the most partners to work with than any other long term Arsenal midfielder and i believe there's a reason for this. 1) The number of injury prone or unreliable midfielders means we have had to chop and change partners for Xhaka. 2) Xhaka is an incredibly flawed footballer thst it's hard to find the perfect partner for him. He's slow, poor under pressure, a hot-head, error-prone, lacks concentration and not that creative for his passing abilities. Most footballers have a weakness or two and you can absolve that by mainly pairing them up with a person who has strengths in the other's weaknesses. For example. Cazorla was insanely technical and creative but was small, weak and a poor athlete. No worries, pair him up with Coquelin who had all the desirable athletic attributes. Look at Wilshere, again a small but technically gifted footballer. No worries, pair him up with Song, who was bigger, stronger and more durable. Just look at our midfield partnerships. Arteta-Ramsey, Cesc-Flamini, Vieira-Gilberto etc.

In my opinion his best performances came with Ramsey in a back 5 formation but teams figured us out and ever since this then we have struggled to properly incorporate Xhaka effectively. Even in Arteta's system it's pretty obvious, Arteta has limited Xhaka's passing and movement for the sake of the team.

The thing that has always annoyed me about Xhaka is that we keep asking this question. "Who is the best partner and fit for Xhaka and for the team?" For me it's an excuse. When the question we should have been asking is "Is Xhaka a good fit for Arsenal?" Personally, for me it's no and we should have moved on from him a long long time ago. My biggest fear with Partey is that he won't be able to fully express himself because Xhaka's limitations will hold him back. Partey won't be allowed to venture forward because Xhaka can't cover large spaces by himself or we stick with the back 5 longer so Xhaka feels comfortable. Xhaka has held us back enough. It's enough.

 

[Manberg]

I disagree, I think three different managers tried their best to accommodate Xhaka in varying degrees and it has limited us severely. Xhaka has played in the double pivot with Cazorla, Wilshere, Ramsey, Coquelin, Elneny, Torreria, Cellabos and Guendouzi in numerous systems. Most of these options are good footballers in their own right. He has had the most partners to work with than any other long term Arsenal midfielder and i believe there's a reason for this. 1) The number of injury prone or unreliable midfielders means we have had to chop and change partners for Xhaka. 2) Xhaka is an incredibly flawed footballer thst it's hard to find the perfect partner for him. He's slow, poor under pressure, a hot-head, error-prone, lacks concentration and not that creative for his passing abilities. Most footballers have a weakness or two and you can absolve that by mainly pairing them up with a person who has strengths in the other's weaknesses. For example. Cazorla was insanely technical and creative but was small, weak and a poor athlete. No worries, pair him up with Coquelin who had all the desirable athletic attributes. Look at Wilshere, again a small but technically gifted footballer. No worries, pair him up with Song, who was bigger, stronger and more durable. Just look at our midfield partnerships. Arteta-Ramsey, Cesc-Flamini, Vieira-Gilberto etc.

In my opinion his best performances came with Ramsey in a back 5 formation but teams figured us out and ever since this then we have struggled to properly incorporate Xhaka effectively. Even in Arteta's system it's pretty obvious, Arteta has limited Xhaka's passing and movement for the sake of the team.

The thing that has always annoyed me about Xhaka is that we keep asking this question. "Who is the best partner and fit for Xhaka and for the team?" For me it's an excuse. When the question we should have been asking is "Is Xhaka a good fit for Arsenal?" Personally, for me it's no and we should have moved on from him a long long time ago. My biggest fear with Partey is that he won't be able to fully express himself because Xhaka's limitations will hold him back. Partey won't be allowed to venture forward because Xhaka can't cover large spaces by himself or we stick with the back 5 longer so Xhaka feels comfortable. Xhaka has held us back enough. It's enough.

Nice ranting, but the information behind all that is false. Xhaka’s best form for us actually came when we had Torreira next to him actually doing the running and operating as a defensive midfielder, all during the 2018/2019 season. That was the only time Xhaka has had a DM next to him for a consistent run of games and during that time our midfield was functioning rather well. Xhaka’s stats were excellent that season, the best in the league in his position. Things went pair shaped the moment Emery started experimenting with Torreira as a #10 and leaving Xhaka exposed. It is proof that when Xhaka has an athletic defensive minded partner doing the running for him, he excels spectacularly. I am hopeful that a Xhaka and Partey pivot will become dominant. It may take some initial time to gel (but not too much time since they are both top quality experienced midfielders), but it will be worth it.

 

[RunTheTrap]

Nice ranting, but the information behind all that is false. Xhaka’s best form for us actually came when we had Torreira next to him actually doing the running and operating as a defensive midfielder, all during the 2018/2019 season. That was the only time Xhaka has had a DM next to him for a consistent run of games and during that time our midfield was functioning rather well. Xhaka’s stats were excellent that season, the best in the league in his position. Things went pair shaped the moment Emery started experimenting with Torreira as a #10 and leaving Xhaka exposed. It is proof that when Xhaka has an athletic defensive minded partner doing the running for him, he excels spectacularly. I am hopeful that a Xhaka and Partey pivot will become dominant. It may take some initial time to gel (but not too much time since they are both top quality experienced midfielders), but it will be worth it.

Banter. The 18/19 season was a horrible season. How many times did we get out shot by inferior opposition? We barely had control over games unless Emery made substitutions. And let's not forget how the great Xhaka went missing in our Europa Final. The best in league? Really? Fernandinho, Gundogan, Fabinho, Henderson, Sissoko were all better and more consistent than Xhaka.
You're blaming Emerys decision to push Torreria up was because he knew his passing wasn't progressive enough and that Xhaka alone wasn't as progressive as he thought, hence, why he brought in Guendouzi to help the team's progression.

 

[Manberg]

Banter. The 18/19 season was a horrible season. How many times did we get out shot by inferior opposition? We barely had control over games unless Emery made substitutions. And let's not forget how the great Xhaka went missing in our Europa Final. The best in league? Really? Fernandinho, Gundogan, Fabinho, Henderson, Sissoko were all better and more consistent than Xhaka.
You're blaming Emerys decision to push Torreria up was because he knew his passing wasn't progressive enough and that Xhaka alone wasn't as progressive as he thought, hence, why he brought in Guendouzi to help the team's progression.

Xhaka and Guendouzi was never a balanced partnership. Xhaka and Torreira was doing well and it was getting results. Results were affected when one got injured, I particularly remember a bad run of form when Xhaka got injured.

Özil was awful in that final. If my memory serves me right, we conceded twice after Özil lost the ball.
Our best performances and results came when we had a Xhaka, Torreira and Ramsey midfield. It wasn’t sustainable due to injuries but when we had those 3, it was great.

 

[Ash10]

Xhaka and Guendouzi was never a balanced partnership. Xhaka and Torreira was doing well and it was getting results. Results were affected when one got injured, I particularly remember a bad run of form when Xhaka got injured.

Özil was awful in that final. If my memory serves me right, we conceded twice after Özil lost the ball.
Our best performances and results came when we had a Xhaka, Torreira and Ramsey midfield. It wasn’t sustainable due to injuries but when we had those 3, it was great.

Your lack of understanding of football & fanboyism gets exposed with every post you make. We were terrible that season. We won many games through sheer luck & substitutions. Torreira was great for half season, Ramsey was his usual injury prone self. Even in a season of nothing we could've finished in the top 4 but your guy went and gave away a nothing penalty to Brighton at home which you obviously will claim to not remember. He was crap that season like he has been for like 90% of his career here

 

[Manberg]

Your lack of understanding of football & fanboyism gets exposed with every post you make. We were terrible that season. We won many games through sheer luck & substitutions. Torreira was great for half season, Ramsey was his usual injury prone self. Even in a season of nothing we could've finished in the top 4 but your guy went and gave away a nothing penalty to Brighton at home which you obviously will claim to not remember. He was crap that season like he has been for like 90% of his career here

Do I need to dig up the stats from that season? Xhaka was one of the best midfielders in the league. You're the one with a lack of understanding of football if you don't rate Xhaka, despite three top managers all using Xhaka as much as possible. He's also his country's captain and most important player. Would be our captain to this day but for silly fans who lack football knowledge such as yourself. Xhaka is integral to Arteta's plans and you're not happy about that.

 

[Ash10]

Do I need to dig up the stats from that season? Xhaka was one of the best midfielders in the league. You're the one with a lack of understanding of football if you don't rate Xhaka, despite three top managers all using Xhaka as much as possible. He's also his country's captain and most important player. Would be our captain to this day but for silly fans who lack football knowledge such as yourself. Xhaka is integral to Arteta's plans and you're not happy about that.

Was integral to us finishing 8th after like forever but yeah keep the banter going

 

[Manberg]

Was integral to us finishing 8th after like forever but yeah keep the banter going

How was our record when he was dropped due to the incident? That's right, we failed to win any game.

 

[Ash10]

How was our record when he was dropped due to the incident? That's right, we failed to win any game.

& how's our record with him? Never finished in the top 4, let alone a title challenge

 

[Manberg]

& how's our record with him? Never finished in the top 4, let alone a title challenge

Last season:

With Xhaka starting (min 45 minutes)
Played: 29
Won: 13
Drawn: 12
Lost: 4

Goals per game: 1.7
Goals against per game: 1.1

Points per game: 1.8
Win rate: 44.8%
Loss rate: 13.8%

Without Xhaka starting
Played: 9
Won: 1
Drawn: 2
Lost: 6

Goals per game: 0.8
Goals against per game: 1.9

Points per game: 0.6
Win rate: 11.1%
Lost rate: 66.7%

… So we won 1. There's always that 1.

Also, blaming Xhaka for the team not finishing top 4 is what a person who lacks football knowledge and maturity will do. He's won 2 FA Cups and 2 community shields in 4 years at Arsenal by the way. Also a Europa league and EFL cup finalist. That's not so bad.