Granit Xhaka: Managers Love Him!

Exactly. What does Xhaka provide? He's now our 4th (I think 5th if Saka was allowed to play centrally but that's untested) best CM on a large contract and expects to start games.

Sell

 

I would play Xhaka in certain games but against teams who have a wicked press not a chance.

 

We need someone in midfield who can link between the midfield and attack. I would like to see Saka in the three in the middle to drive through th lines.

 

Unpopular opinion, but thought he was okay yesterday. Okay means a 6 out of 10. Why should our cm be chasing their right winger into the box?

 

Because he was playing LCB role when we were out of possession yesterday.

 

Don't blame him for anything yesterday, he was forced to play a role which has nothing to do with his strengths.
I thought the idea of bringing in Partey was to relieve Xhaka of some defensive burden and push Ceballos into a more advanced position.
We ended up with Xhaka playing some hybrid of LCB, LB and DMC, Partey playing where he should and Ceballos being on the right, covering for Bellerin who was playing some RF when we were on the ball. A complete mess and total misunderstanding of the strengths and weaknesses of our players.

 

This was the same role that saved Xhaka from Hertha Berlin. When Arteta first came in he used a 4-2-3-1 formation and would drop Xhaka back into LCB/LB when we had the ball. This was so he could stay back while Saka could push up and attack without having to worry about defending. This is a role that Xhaka is familiar with and many were praising him for finally being good. He’s now gone back to this role, made a costly mistake and now everyone has forgot this was the role that Arteta gave him to save his Arsenal career.

 

Going to Xhaka from Cazorla, is worse than when we went from Van Persie to Giroud.

 

We don't need Arteta to save his career and we don't need to copy anything from Pep, Hertha or anyone. This is a strong squad now, Xhaka has some great partners in midfield in Ceballos and Partey, we have a great LB in Tierney. All we need is from Arteta is to f**k off with this stuff and play a normal football game. 3 midfielders (Xhaka, Ceballos, Partey), with Pepe and Saka/Willian on the wings, Auba CF, that's all.
With that, you have everything, a stable midfield, players who can create and score and all the players will play to their strengths.
Simple as f**k.

 

Yeah, I wanna see 4-3-3

Bellerin - Luiz - Gabriel - Tierney
Ceballos - Partey - Xhaha
Willian - Auba - Saka

If this team will be playing dead football we should give up on this season honestly

 

Swap Pepe for Willian and I will write to Arteta today to get that sorted.

Seriously, Pepe will probably give us more goalscoring threat so it won't be all down to Auba, Saka and Willian are too similar IMO.

 

How exactly is Xhaka contributing in this three man midfield? Will he be stand front of defense? Or will he move forward?

 

He doesn't contribute that much, it's Partey who does the defensive work and Ceballos should be given the freedom to play more offensively/free role. Xhaka will always have good positioning and he will allow the other two to have more freedom in their game. Think Partey can safely take the ball from our defenders and pass it forward, that was the only reason why we needed Ceballos in a deeper position until now

 

@Manberg

 

King Mikel will not die on this hill, I’m convinced of that... He’s on borrowed time imo.

 

Brings us back to that age old question doesn’t it? What is he actually good at? At least with Elneny you know he’ll get it and release it and probably get it again soon after and release it, Keeping things moving and ticking over.

 

I've already responded mate. Leicester had no joy from pressing Xhaka. People think Xhaka always buckles under the pressure and keeps giving the ball away but that's just not true.

 

Problem is that Xhaka and Pepe are useless, Willian is Mikitaryan MKII, Ceballos is overrated and Auba is in terrible form (which cannot be explained by him playing in the flanks cause he scored plenty of goals from the flanks last season). Arteta inherited a weak squad and you cannot fix the squad with just a Gabriel and Partey. And a poor signing.

 

Or showing that he isn’t as fast as a fast forward?

 

Not really. Partey should have blocked the pass if we’re playing perfectionist football here.

If you play a high line you’re meant to put pressure on the ball to prevent people finding the through ball...