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Granit Xhaka: Xhak Off?

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SA Gunner

Hates Tierney And Wants Him Sold Immediately
Moderator

Country: South Africa

Player:Nketiah
Caught up with the interview.

Xhaka is right, we fell apart when it mattered most. Brutal, yet honest and everyone from Arteta to the players should take a hard hard look at themselves.

We must learn from this and the club must strengthen the team and bring in the steel we need.
 

Taneruit

Established Member

Country: Switzerland

Player:Zinchenko
City fan here, who occasionally passes through. Well disposed towards your club, dislike Tottenham fairly intensely (I've got my own reasons). Ok?
Not trying to butt in or anything. But do you guys think Xhaka should have gone public on that? I think it's no bad thing to have a fairly senior player say that kind of thing in the privacy of the dressing room. It's putting it out through the media that's the problem for me. If anything, it's for the manager to make that kind of comment publicly. And even then, the negative fallout from players may make it not worth it. Mourinho did it regularly, and it was often like a pistol that blew up in his hands.
Just wondering what you think…
Xhaka has always been honest in interviews. Positive or negative. This is the same guy that dropped an F-Bomb at the euros last year in praise for his team and then went on directly calling out the media trying to hinder the team with negative influence.

It's what I personally prefer too, rather than dictated PR answers so everyone's happy. YMMV.
 

TornadoTed

Established Member
Imagine building a team around a player Xhaka. The man collects red for stupidity at least three times each season.
We need better but his discipline is grossly exaggerated, he has had 4 red cards in 187 games over 6 seasons in the Premier League since joining us.

 

RacingPhoton

Established Member
We need better but his discipline is grossly exaggerated, he has had 4 red cards in 187 games over 6 seasons in the Premier League since joining us.

4 red cards is still bad. But complaints about his discipline are not just down to red cards. He also conceded 6 penalties in the period.
 

RacingPhoton

Established Member
I was surprised this thread blew up because he was obviously not the worst player in the pitch. Then I came across the interview.

It boils down to the question of whether a leader should be a good player himself. He has been okish in the recent games after we started playing him a bit forward. But still his key passes, through balls, chance created stats are not even close to someone like Cazorla. We managed to mask his weaknesses and got a little bit out of him in that role. Still he is hardly a player who should regularly start for a team eyeing top 4.

Given that his performances have been below average for the past 6 years, does he have the right to criticise the team like this in public? Depends on how the team looks up to him. We hear news articles about how he is the dressing room leader. I personally wouldn't take orders from anyone who doesn't have a proven track record himself. So I have always been surprised by how the team seems to consider him a leader.
 

Yousif Arsenal

On Vinai's payroll & misses 4th place trophy 🏆
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xhaka is right People and media want player to be honest xhaka was honest and was right players were scared they didn't even follow the game plan they lost every 50/50. Doesn't matter if he played well or not football is team effort.

Gary honestly need to shut up focus at your club who are worse than us currently stop spreading negative opinions about us because of views and clicks. Nobody cares about your rat looking face.
 

mpower2540

Well-Known Member
City fan here, who occasionally passes through. Well disposed towards your club, dislike Tottenham fairly intensely (I've got my own reasons). Ok?
Not trying to butt in or anything. But do you guys think Xhaka should have gone public on that? I think it's no bad thing to have a fairly senior player say that kind of thing in the privacy of the dressing room. It's putting it out through the media that's the problem for me. If anything, it's for the manager to make that kind of comment publicly. And even then, the negative fallout from players may make it not worth it. Mourinho did it regularly, and it was often like a pistol that blew up in his hands.
Just wondering what you think…
If you watch the interview seems to me he's just giving a direct answer to the question of "was it the performance of a young team?" He didn't throw anyone under the bus, said "we" multiple times and I thought everything he said was absolutely spot on. I think he's become an incredibly easy lightning rod for people to slag Arsenal off. I'm not a huge fan of his playing style and he's made plenty of mistakes but there's nothing to see here.
 

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
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Country: Nigeria

Player:Saliba
Did I miss something?

Why is this thread having 17 pages after an Arsenal loss when this guy was clearly one of our better players?
 

Yousif Arsenal

On Vinai's payroll & misses 4th place trophy 🏆
Trusted ⭐
Did I miss something?

Why is this thread having 17 pages after an Arsenal loss when this guy was clearly one of our better players?
He did interview after the game question the performance of the squad and told them they had no balls today.

 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
Is he CL quality when he leads the Pl in red cards and giveaways for goals last 6years? Is he Cl quality when every single team since Partey’s injury plays through him like a hot knife through butter. If he is such an elite player why has he been dominated in two months straight by teams of all levels? He is Championship level defensively not Champions league, go look at his defensive stats they are comical this season screw championship without his left foot he is a league 1 leg breaker with no foot speed
As you are obviously hard of reading, I said he has patches of CL quality but is generally EL quality. But do feel free to argue with things I haven't said., just do so with someone else ;-)

Xhaka is beneath our aspirational level, but is fine for a team 4-6, as long as he's not the main man. Unless we can get someone better and oven ready, he'll be here next year. If Norwich do as a favour at the weekend, we may be able to afford someone good enough to staple him to the bench
 

albakos

Arséne Wenger: "I will miss you"
Administrator

Country: Kosova

Player:Saka
Of which a few of them directly lead to us finishing outside the top 4 by a point
Wrong as usual.

He got two red cards in 1st season: at home to Swansea and home to Burnley, we won both of those games. No points dropped.

He got the red card v. City this season and it didn't lead us to finishing outside CL because it was a "free hit" match.

And the 4th red was again against Burnley at home last season, it didn't lead out of CL by a point, because we finished 8th.
 

Farzad Stoned

Self-appointed Deprogrammer for the Cult of Mik 🟥

Country: USA

Player:Havertz
As you are obviously hard of reading, I said he has patches of CL quality but is generally EL quality. But do feel free to argue with things I haven't said., just do so with someone else ;-)

Xhaka is beneath our aspirational level, but is fine for a team 4-6, as long as he's not the main man. Unless we can get someone better and oven ready, he'll be here next year. If Norwich do as a favour at the weekend, we may be able to afford someone good enough to staple him to the bench
Nonsense name a single team in top 6 Xhaka could play for? He makes Fred and Hojberg look like Viera and Keane. I can read your post fine reading comprehension has never been an issue. Xhaka without his pretty left foot switches is literally a league 1 one player if not for that. He is among the worst starting central midfielders in most defensive stats. Since Partey, has gone down even bottom half teams have dominated our midfield. If Xhaka can’t even compete for 2 months and gets dominated in the midfield by everyone in the league how the blooming heck does that make him a top 6 CM.

It is as facts don’t matter to Xhaka apologists, someone said Xhaka was better than Tielemans defensively, then another poster put their defensive stats up. Tiekemans who the league critics trash as poor defensively, dominated Xhaka in every defensive stat except aerial duels. He is a luxury player who is a sieve defensively, but unlike other luxury players who are tolerated for goals or assists we got to satisfy ourselves with pretty switches to either wing
 

Jury

A-M's drunk uncle
City fan here, who occasionally passes through. Well disposed towards your club, dislike Tottenham fairly intensely (I've got my own reasons). Ok?
Not trying to butt in or anything. But do you guys think Xhaka should have gone public on that? I think it's no bad thing to have a fairly senior player say that kind of thing in the privacy of the dressing room. It's putting it out through the media that's the problem for me. If anything, it's for the manager to make that kind of comment publicly. And even then, the negative fallout from players may make it not worth it. Mourinho did it regularly, and it was often like a pistol that blew up in his hands.
Just wondering what you think…
If he was Mr Arsenal and as good as he thinks he is, I’d probably let it slide. As it is, he’s got no real respect for the club or the fans and he’s only here because nobody would throw in a full tank of two-stroke unleaded with the lawnmower that we were willing to swap him for. No player currently at this club gets a pass for that.
 

Farzad Stoned

Self-appointed Deprogrammer for the Cult of Mik 🟥

Country: USA

Player:Havertz
We go office space style on his knees
Neville was right I saw this coming once we bungled the NLD, anyone who looks at the players Arteta had available would know there was a huge chance of the bottle. Credit to Neville I don’t like it, but as a commentator he got it right. Your anger at Neville for calling it is misplaced the guy just did his job and did it well. One guy bears responsibility and he doesn’t work in commentary booth. Do you get mad at Doctor if he gives you an accurate diagnosis?
 

Camus

Active Member
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Xhaka's abilities as a footballer are irrelevant to the logical merit of his critique. If it were any other way then someone like me and others on here (and the football fandom in general) wouldn't be allowed to voice our critiques of clearly terrible footballers/managers/performances purely on the basis that we're not good in those fields. That's nonsensical.

On the other hand, whilst his assessment has merit some could say it would have been nice if he'd have acted on it in the past and stayed at home/on the bench when he's ended up putting in numerous dreadful performances. I've defended him in the past against criticism like that on the basis that it's not Xhaka that picks himself in the starting 11, it's the manager. It's pure fantasy to expect a player to turn around and say "Boss you know what I think I'm a bit of a bottler so sit me out this match".

His comments are fine in a general criticism sense, as an analogy/allegory if you will. But in a literal sense they of course don't work because then he opens himself up to the rebuttal I mentioned above whereby some culd rightly say he should have sat himself at home loads of time in the past.
 
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