If we’re looking to keep them, then yes.
If Wenger can command £8.5m p/a, then why not pay the best players £12m p/a
Newsflash - Xhaka is a DLP. Havent 90% of us been saying that from day 1.
3 Likes
wenger doesnt like long balls
He must have used to hate Cesc’s long passes, probably why he shifted him so fast.
1 Like
Wenger buys Xhaka and credits him for being a DLP and playing diagonal balls.
Wenger watches him play a few games, says he’s b2b, fans rustled.
Wenger observes Granit in training again and announces he really is a DLP.
Think Wenger will start playing him now.
We had a difficult fixture list post losing Cazorla, hence playing Xhaka would have been bit foolish.
Xhaka, 100% a deep lying playmaker and should start in place of Coquelin for a run of games.
Coquelin-Xhaka together is overly defensive and offers nothing in support of the forwards.
Playing your next best Central player after Cazorla would have been foolish ? Ok.
3 Likes
On what basis are you calling him next best central player?
Haha, “we’ve got some tough games coming up, not a good time to play your best players!”
4 Likes
On the basis that he made the Bundesliga team of the year last season or close to it and his performances for Switzerland at Euro 2016.
He is a quality player indeed but so far in his Arsenal career, he has not shown anything to be considered our best option, especially considering the pace of PL is different to those competition and his lack of pace & athleticism has been found out and almost cost us a match.
If Coq/Xhaka is overly defensive then what’s Coq/Elneny?
Not seeing how a pivot with Xhaka offers nothing for forwards.
2 Likes
He’s done enough in his career to be ahead of Elneny at least. And being the only midfielder capable of seeing and making a pass should have him starting every week in Cazorla’s absence. He has weaknesses but they all have weaknesses. No reason for him not to be playing right now.
3 Likes
IMO the plan against United was to play the most defensively solid team. Elneny covers more ground than Xhaka and is less likely to get a red so that’s why he started
Plan is a rather generous choice of words there.
1 Like
So why did Wenger pay 30m for him.
Surely a manager who doesn’t like spending would have his stats and realised his lack of pace and the fact he wasn’t better than what we already had.
So he can adapt? and not get sent off in games versus United, Spurs and PSG.
[quote=“Trion, post:625, topic:94, full:true”]
So he can adapt? and not get sent off in games versus United, Spurs and PSG.
[/quote]But surely it’s games like these where you need your best players.
You can’t spend 30m on a player if he is only going to play in matches we probably would have won anyway and not in the most important games.
Wenger signed a deep lying playmaker, said he thinks he might be a box to box then decides actually he’s a deep lying playmaker.
We lose our best passer of the midfield pairing and rather than put our next best passer of the ball in we instead opt for an ultra defensive and/or ultra ineffective midfield pairing which just so happens to coincide with our poorest run of performances this season.
Xhaka - Ramsey
Xhaka - Coquelin