Granit Xhaka: Managers Love Him!

Xhaka’s still being underrated. His passing down to wing players in advanced position is key to our transitions. Against Palace it failed a few times but it worked more often than not. It’s indicative of his intent to progress play. Unfortunately, AMN, Auba, Bellerin and Pepe did next to nothing with the ball in those positions. The onus is on them to be the creative ones in the final third, not Xhaka. Look what happened against West Brom and Newcastle when Xhaka found Tierney... he did things.

He’s instructed to advance play to the flanks and the channels rather than the middle because that’s where our strengths lie. Before when we had Özil it was Xhaka playing through the middle finding Özil and it worked a treat.

 

"Xhaka still being underrated"

Arsenal becoming a worse team each season since we signed him to be our midfield lynchpin basically, plus our standard of football declining in that time too.

But man is underrated

 

Blaming a team’s decline on one player is a petty argument. We won more games with Xhaka than without since he’s been here.

 

I don't even put in the effort in pointing out how bad he is anymore. Anything remotely average that he does will always get treated like it’s something out of this world. We've become mid table fodder with this bum & his cultists here & in social media still act like he's prime Pirlo or something. He did fvck all offensively against Newcastle & made Hollywood tackles only because his slow ass couldn’t move quick enough or he was out of position as you said. But what's the point, his cultists won't change

 

Ah the usual Manberg argument, funny how you think he has no hand in the decline while the rest of the team are at fault. That hypocrisy has been pointed out enough times but we all know you have no shame

 

I never pinpointed the blame for our decline down to any one player, nor any combination of players. You put words in my mouth, or rather, my fingertips.

p.s: I’m not Manberg

 

Whatever you say

 

Central midfield is probably the most important part of any team, especially when it comes to how well your team can play...when we had someone like Vieira as our main midfielder, it was perfect, as we had someone who was both physically and technically the best midfielder in the league...look at how successfully we were then.

As long as you have one of those standout attributes you will be fine, for example, look how better we were when we had Santi in midfield pulling the strings.

I do blame Xhaka the most, as I feel you live and die as a team by your midfield, as if you win a midfield battle you will almost certainly win a game of football...for £35 million, I expect much better than what he has given us.

Granit is average physically, average technically...just an average player, that has contributed massively to us now being an average team.

 

Of course you can't blame one player but Xhaka has been with us for all these years where our decline has really sped up, certainly in the league.

I personally think he's had a decent last 2-3 games but the fact that, not including Partey, he's probably our best midfielder is a sad sad indictment of the the state of our midfield. It needs a massive rebuild but the problem is I can't see us going out and buying 3 or 4 centre midfielders either now or in the summer.

 

...wonderful news, it has be to said!

I think I speak for everyone at Arsenal, Granit...when I say, take the next few months off and really tend to your family.

 

This made me laugh or out loud

 

Should be a stay-at-home dad tbh

 

Cute photo. Adorable.

 

It’s inexplicable, unforgivable and one of the reasons people hate this team and can’t stand the player. How can you turn up the chance of a simple attacking pass and then screw up a nothing pass a minute later? **** me.

 

But hey he didn’t cost a penalty or throttle someone so MOTM performance

 

Yeah everyone getting hyped about a few very important defensive plays he made yesterday. Some of which were results of his own mistakes. And even yesterday, he is just not good enough on the ball for what we need (as shown above). I worry about playing him with Partey as he always wants the ball and to be the top dog in the midfield, which won't be appropriate, once Partey is back in the swing of things.

 

Xhaka was our best player against Palace. It’s pitiful that some are coming here to dispute it due to the typical anti Xhaka agenda. If he wasn’t there then Palace boss our midfield. It would have shaped up like the Villa game where we lost 3-0 with the Partey El Neny midfield. Xhaka is the only one who stood to the challenge physically, and frustrated the likes of Zaha. If he wasn’t our best player against Palace then who was?

I’ve heard the absolutely ridiculous argument that “Xhaka shouldn’t get praise for tackling because it’s his job”. If Xhaka doesn’t get praise for tackling then strikers shouldn’t get praised for scoring, which they’re failing at

You’re even nitpicking over his passing, which was very good most of the time. He passed better than most of the team, yet you only scour over twitter clips for every misplaced Xhaka pass. If you ever want proof of the anti Xhaka agenda there it is. Going to such great length to place what was our best player under the microscope for his mistakes. If you’re in management then I agree, everyone’s mistakes has to get analysed and corrected. But you’re spending hours debating the mistakes of our best player of the match whilst spending little to no time on everyone else’s mistakes.

The worst part is you don’t even see what you’re doing.

 

To be fair, this has happened to many players since Arteta came in. Sideways and backward.