Granit Xhaka

From behind, only on the player and without a chance of the ball. One can definitely argue over the severity of the tackle, but it shouldn’t need a serious injury to a player to be sent off for a foul like this. No need to go to the ground when you have other options.

Well of course not, I’ve not seen a single person argue that cards should be handed out on the basis of whether the foul caused serious injury or not.

The problem seems to be that he went to ground. Had he stayed on his feet and clipped Barrow’'s heels intentionally or pulled his shirt the foul would have the exact same intention, level of cynicism and end result. But entirely different punishments.

My point is if you go in like this from behind the chances of an injury are higher. It also adds into your second paragraph that yea indeed if he stayed on his feet and just merely clipped him or pulled his shirt it would have been a yellow. The intention’s likely the same but honestly it’s hard to really differ in situations like this. It’s often a matter of not giving the referee an option to send you off and staying on your feet and not kicking the opponent from behind is a good start to that.

You mean he didnt go for the ball and just missed , Im shocked !

As it was for Xhaka

1 Like

Eh, amateurish is rather harsh, I’ve seen the same happen to Busquets on a few rare occasions, and I would be loathe to call him amateurish…even players who generally have top positioning can make an error in judgment/can read the play wrong when put in a bad situation as Xhaka was. What’s weird, I have to say, is how you are going so hard at Xhaka but then rather brushing off the Coquelin error, which was just as, and for me more, amateurish.

Also, classifying his performance as atrocious is hyperbole for me, fact is between the two errors he was one of our standout players, winning the ball high up the pitch and redistributing well, and forming a key part of a performance that was smothering Swansea and producing a rather high level performance in general. It’s also a bit facile to put the game going so close down to him solely…at 3-1 the game is well in control and his error costing the goal is surely outweighed by his contribution to us being ahead so handily in the overall score, is it his fault a few players switched off in the defensive phase to make it 3-2 and game on again?

I would certainly describe that tackle as merely clipping him. The intention was clear: trip/clip him, without any violence to it.

As someone that is all for a stance as zero tolerance as possible on cynical/dangerous/anti-sporting play, I still have to say that your first sentence here is a major stretch…the difference between tripping someone in the way Xhaka did and pulling someone down is pretty minimal, both situations are very, very unlikely to result in injury, and if they do, it’s hard to put it down to the offender because there are loads of legal disputes during a match that are more likely to result in injury.

Like I said originally, it’s really just the aesthetic nature of the foul that results in the red…you never see a player jumping to just get the one piece of the player he can like that, and when you do it really catches your attention.

2 Likes

It was an amateurish play, not intending to say he is amateurish. He is a fine player and I hope will come good for us. Just because I think one play was really bad, doesn’t mean I am condemning the player for all time.

Re: Le Coq, I am not absolving him because he contributed massively to the situation, but this isn’t a Coquelin thread and the way Xhaka handled the bad situation was terrible imho. That’s really all I am saying… adding to that his gift earlier in the game, my summation was that it was a bad game from him. There isn’t some vast anti-Xhaka conspiracy or agenda or comparison with Le Coq or Kante lol more broadly.

I didn’t think he was that great honestly besides those two errors. I thought he did an ok job in a situation where we were largely dominating. Generally speaking, the whole team was humming and clicking and we were only really lacking in the final third. THat’s fine if you disagree - it is reasonable debate.

We were dominant - his error changed the game. And then his second error contributed to our edginess by being a man down. Maybe I am being harsh, but I have way higher expectations of him than what I saw on the weekend.

1 Like

To me it’s a kick, but not really a hard one. If he was trying to clip him he could have done so a second earlier. Ultimately it’s really just a line that has to be drawn somewhere and I think it should be close to what happened in the situation above as reading intention into a player’s action can be rather tough or close to impossible at times.

Is there any news about a ban for Xhaka? Can’t remember having read anything about it.

Standard three games for violent conduct? Or was it two?

‘Given the weekend off’ aka shit cunt of a ref needs to think about how appauling he was

1 Like

It’s a one game ban. I’m sure Wenger said so.

Edit: Just googled and I can see it’s three game

Somewhat odd that Xhaka didn’t play last night, but perhaps Coquelin needed warming up properly ahead of Middlesbrough.

Elneny will presumably get the Reading gig along with a yoof.

I thought Xhaka was suspended from playing last night. Not looked into it though.

Yeah he’s got the 3 game ban in domestic comps. So this weekend will be the last match he’s disqualified for.

As much as I love this guy he needs to learn to calm himself the fuck down

Didn’t catch him flush but still that could of easily been a straight red, ball was long gone too.

2 Likes

Yeah that was kinda ridiculous, definitely could’ve seen red. Though the referee was playing a pretty lenient game, if that was red so was the tackle on Alexis near the corner flag.

Hopefully Wenger is working with him on cutting this out of his game. Given that he played Flamini as much as he did though, with his guaranteed 2 shockers per game, I have my worries.

Yeah definitely, that tackle was all kinds of stupid. Alexis was going nowhere all he had to do was stand up and box him in but instead he went for the fucking dunga lunge, haha :sanchez2:

No coach in world football was stopping flamini having at least 2 shockers per game tbh.

The dude seriously lost any semblance of ability. Great attitude though.

1 Like

Very lenient with your critic for xhaka huh :bellerin: