Granit Xhaka: Managers Love Him! (But No One Else Does)

Don't accept it because I say it's true, accept it we're all Arsenal fans who watch Arsenal and have a pair of eyes, and hopefully understand a thing or two about football.

If you think Xhaka is press resistant you either a) are confused about what press resistance is or b) don't watch Arsenal, or both.

Not running off, just don't see the point in disputing the obvious further (you'll see I've done it a lot, in earnest, in this thread), nor in further confusing the definition of press resistance for the sake of people's strange agenda with Xhaka, nor in coming off as a hater of a player who I actually like, despite being able to realise the obvious characteristics of his game.

 

Look, he need acres to work in otherwise he's a liability. He can just about manage to hoof the ball backwards if he's pressed because he can't move with the ball, he turns slower than milk, he's got **** technique and the athleticism of a 60 year old. That's why he was hooked and Elneny stayed.

 

Has there ever been a player that regularly takes set pieces with either foot and the same precision each time?

Such a unique talent.

 

Something that was said a lot here in Spain and which is true: of our golden generation, he is actually the best technically. On a technical level he’s simply 10/10.

Brahim Díaz does what you say btw, hoping he plays for Arsenal some day.

 

Straight from the internets with love:

Gaslighting

• manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.

Spin

• spin, in politics, the attempt to control or influence communication in order to deliver one’s preferred message.

 

Spain produced some fantastic players for a while. Seldom seen a national team side as dominant. And this comes from someone who supports the German national team. For a while it felt like just not possible to beat them. They just had the opposing teams in a such a vice like grip it was unreal. And it came from their superior individual technique and team organisation.

 

Yeah, unfortunately for us, and fortunately for football, other nations, first Germany, now France, Holland, Portugal, even England, did a good job of copying our model and are now producing fantastic technical players, often more athletic than ours.

Tbh I think we continue to produce great players but the rest of football has caught up.

Now nationalising talents like Ansu Fati and Ilaix Moriba becomes our hope to keep up with the amazing technical and physical level of talents these nations are producing.

Our dominance was also a nice confluence of the heart of Guardiola’s well drilled team also being the heart of Spain. Tactical level is always better at the club level with top managers and these players were basically just carrying over Pep’s dynamic to the national team, leaving us at a higher level tactically.

 

He was not enjoying himself yesterday at all. Struggled when he was closed down.

 

Yeah his limitations were greatly exposed yesterday, probably was the right decision to take him off as he was next to useless in that kinda game.

 

Oh I see, you want to appear to be running off to avoid a reply but want to continue posting to further your opinion. A sort of dishonest win-win for you, I guess.

Now to address the strawman...

Can you quote the bolded for me. Ta. If not, no biggie, but please apologise for this misrepresentation of my position.

At no point did I accuse you specifically of saying that, I was clearly pointing to A-M as a collective. Are you really telling me you haven't seen some strange negative **** posted about Xhaka in this thread? If not, then perhaps it is you not reading this thread that is the issue.

You seem to be compressing multiple strawmen into a strawfield and arguing with that instead of me at this point.

 

Tbf I thought you were muddying the waters on what press resistance is for a purpose, so that's why I went that way with my words, because I imagined that's where you wanted to get with it, ie, muddy the waters re: what is press resistance so to deny that Xhaka doesn't have it.

We're all good, I do apologise for the misrepresentation/assumption of your position.

 

Kenzo would have been aggressive and bossed it yesterday

 

He struggles when there is no passing option, ie the entire team is struggling to deal with the press and not able to get open. If there is an open player he finds them.

 

Tbh I'm not fussed with Xhaka's performance today. Fully expected him to do this. Anyways, look at the midfielders we're after and the ones Arteta has trusted: Aouar, Partey, Cellabos and you could even put Elneny in there. You see what the above have in common? Press-resistance and mobility. Xhaka possesses none of the above and when we move into a back 4, Xhaka will be made redundant. Personally I feel that while Arteta rates Xhaka for what he is. It's clear it's not the way he wants his team to play.

 

But Ceballos was able to do it. It's the midfielder's job to get you out of the press and transition to attack. All of a sudden, the entire team looked much better in attack after Ceballos replaced Xhaka.

 

Giroud is able to hold the ball, Auba can’t. Auba must be a sh*t player, right? Giroud the world class one.

See how stupid your logic is?

Different players have different strengths. Ceballos is a better dribbler, doesn’t mean Xhaka’s sh*t. Xhaka’s a better passer.

 

Also better at being invisible, pointing stuff & passing it backwards
As for calling people stupid; you don't know the most basic of terms & apparently don't even know how to use the internet as you can't even search for them yourself. Some above average iq you have & btw not even gonna go into your hypocritical statements all the frickin time

 

Personally I think Arteta has handled our pretty awful squad situation well since coming in with no head coaching experience. He didn't try to right all wrongs and correct all errors at once, but worked with what he had (e.g. Xhaka) and tried to improve them as much as possible and put them in positions they could handle. Given his multitude of limitations I seriously doubt Xhaka can be in Arteta's long term plans. Once we have something better he will play less and then be phased out and sold. I can see this happening in 18 to 24 months depending on what we get through the door.

 

Yes but auba fulfils the most important role for a striker...score goals (and if we break it down, he has elite pace and elite movement and elite finishing).

Xhaka is basically rubbish at most things, passing under pressure, dribbling out of trouble, first touch under pressure.

Only positives he has is that he's got a pretty good lofted pass out to the left he's got good stamina, is good at pointing fingers and excellent at pissing off the crowd.

 

Yeah I'm not one of the Xhaka Ultras, I guess I just see the game differently to other people. Sorry if you thought I was targeting you specifically, if I have a problem with someone I'm not usually shy to say

Glad we're sorted.