Granit Xhaka

We all know his failings but 2 key passes yesterday, an assist and 4 accurate long balls and he put a shift in defensively. With Partey and ESR putting a shift we can possibly protect him from being pressed through their ball carrying and give him more time to find those passes. Arteta clearly believes there’s a player there

3 Likes

Good enough for now out of worse options sadly. Understand the role and team set up better than the other options and better player for Partey which has to be the key.

2 Likes

I thought alongside Partey he put in arguably his best performance at the club so far in the week.

I don’t want to say he looked good but actually he did.

I hated him for so long. Maybe a stupid red card against the Mancs on Saturday will see a restoration of my original opinion.

2 Likes

Got a nice assist for Pepe.

Still hate the cunt though, not letting myself get sucked in after the last 4 years.

Guy could turn into peak Vieira and I’d still want him gone.

1 Like

If Partey continues to be a press resistant beast and he has guys to pass to between the lines like we’ve had recently he will naturally start look better.

Bit like when Wenger stumbled upon 3-4-3 and he was partnered with Ramsey and they struck a solid balance behind Ozil/Sanchez late in 16-17 and parts of 17-18.

We know his limitations and the intelligent thing to do would be to sell him after the season if he can finish strongly in this system and bring his value up. I thought we missed a trick last summer not selling him to Italy/Germany.

2 Likes

Hate seeing us adapt to Xhaka of all players.
We should see him off and build the team around proper class players.

3 Likes

Real test will be the summer. I really want us to get rid of him. It probably more about how I dislike his personality (or at least what we see of his personality) and his fake hard man act.

2 Likes

Fuck off. Seriously???

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Durable isn’t he ?

4 Likes

Well he’s been here 5 seasons and usually plays every game can’t remember him having any injuries so he should be hitting them appearance milestones haha

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Very solid match today.

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No complaints from me today he held his own, it was Partey that looked like he’d been out on the lash last night.

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Yeah was good again Xhaka, been playing really well since that Red card against Burnley.

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Well, he certainly was good in most things he did. Problem is, he doesn’t do that much that can go wrong. Lots of sideways or backwards passing, committing a few fouls and winning a few. I think our expectations are quite low from him, now that we have Partey in the side.

He played lots of forward creative balls at Southampton though to his credit, I don’t love the guy and want him sold and not a starter, but I’ll judge him on merit without an agenda.

3 Likes

I can see why he got the house keys over his older brother now

Solid midtable performance keeping us in 9th or whatever obscure table position we are in :+1::+1:

Lads. It’s a trap.

6 Likes

Its not really a trap, it’s become very clear that Xhaka can perform well enough over a season to get up to 8th or maybe even 6th if he really plays well and thats about it. I mean it’s reflecting perfectly where we are in the table.