I didnt see the match but I hardly think its a coincidence that the moment Xhaka returns we lost the battle of possession and allowed more shots to our opposition than we took.
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Any team worth their salt will still target him anyway, no matter who you put beside him.
Like @SDGooner said, itās more a sign of how shocking this team is more than anything I think. Thankfully the CM position is cavernous in terms of worldwide talent, so I think we can easily rejig if we lost him/sold him.
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Helped us massively today creatively. Heās been almost excellent for Arteta. Him and Luiz completely transformed under him, I hope the latterās performance against City was just an one-off.
Is it sarcasm or a joke?
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Just reading the comments in the match day thread, Artetaās strategy was to sit back and counter once we got the goal. So yeh maybe Xhaka can actually work when we sit 11 men in our own half and defend, but when it comes to dominating a game and playing beautiful football Xhaka is fucking shit and gets punked by opposition midfielders all dey. Hate the sight of this shitter.
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No. Luiz was playing very well under Arteta till that disasterclass against City which reminded people his bad side.
I mean, it wasnāt long ago most wanted him to get an extension.
Still donāt see it, and Iād be a lot happier if we could flog him to some team in Germany.
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Itās fucking shambolic that Xhaka is the only player in this squad who knows where to stand and how to progress the ball forward (semi) intelligently from deep.
He gets zero support from his midfield partners. No wonder he starts when fit. Heās literally the only competent midfielder we have.
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Erm
Hes not competent.
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The throw that they scored their goal from came because Xhaka dithering on a ball in midfield and of course giving it away when being slightly hounded. As has been pointed out, massive space in the middle of the pitch because of this guy being in the team. I hate watching us when he features. Go back and watch the Brighton match we absolutely dominated midfield due to Guendo and Dani being able to cover space. That should be our pairing in midfield with a better #10 than Willock and weād be instantly better.
We know heās a liability defensively @BigWeng_4LYFE, but apart from Ozil and Xhaka our other midfielders are mediocre creatively. We just gotta deal with it. 
Right so u go with Ozil because heās not as important to the defense and u stick some actual midfielders with abilities in the center of the park.
Such a useless player. I get scared any time the ball goes near him.
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Well yeah, but Ozil hasnāt been āfitā yet. Personally, I canāt see us achieving anything without Ozil returning to the side.
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Ozil is virtually irrelevant for us and has been for a whileā¦ sad end to a promising start with us.
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Not true, he was very important when Arteta took over. Despite his numbers not being high, his performances were very good.
Heās been pretty good occasionally, but nothing special and certainly his lack of being reliably available or coming good in big games is hard to takeā¦ he offers nothing in terms of defensive or even pressing competence, so he needs to connect things and create moments or he isnāt really carrying his weight.
FWIW 2019/20 EPL he has 18 appearances and 1 goal, 2 assistsā¦ according to Premierleague.com: 1 big chance created.
18/19 - 24 appearances, 5 goals, 2 assists and Europa: 10 appearances and 1 goal
17/18 - 26 appearances, 4 goals, 8 assists and Europa: 7 appearances and 1 goal
You really have to go back to 15/16 to get special Ozilā¦ since then it has been all downhill.
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Sure, all Iām saying, I prefer covering Ozilās weaknesses than Xhakaās. Ideally, we shouldnāt be covering weaknesses in our midfield (at least in such extent) but thatās our squad atm.
Maybe Torreira comes back a new man, dunno. 
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no disagreement thereā¦ Ozil is useful precisely because we have such complete diabolical dross in CM overall.
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