I’ve been calling for the Dani/Partey pivot for ages now. As far as the options we have in the squad that’s easily the best pairing. Can’t recall if that was used in the Europa League matches? I don’t think it was but maybe it’s because Partey has been injured. Xhaka needs to be dropped that’s all I know.
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Outside of Partey who’s not been fit very much the rest of the centre mid options are just not good enough to make us a top 4 team.
Xhaka has out played Ceballos and Elneny and has looked ok lately except for this mistake. I don’t think Toreira or Guendo were all that great when still around too. Guendo may be good by Hertha standards but they’re a relatively poor team down the bottom of the Bundesliga and when I last watched him I thought he was pretty poor compared with our aspirations as a club and with a stinky attitude too.
I would say that continuing to have a clear out in this area key to finance someone else more Partey standard which will allow us to move Xhaka to a rotation option at most. Xhaka is just too error prone and we need to start clearing out the culture of stupid errors from the club.
Personally though I still blame Leno as much as Xhaka today, a real hospital pass but because Leno is quite popular on here I see that old panto villain Xhaka is getting most of the blame on his own and Leno is being largely excused. It was a poor mistake but as others said our inability to convert the chances we had were what cost us most along with a refereeing howler on the hand ball that wasn’t given by VAR imbecile Friend.
A real travesty we only got 1 point out of 6 against mediocre but hard pressing Burnley.
Problem is there’s always one around the corner with him. He’ll have a good run of form so you’ll be lulled into a false sense of security and then he’ll have a complete calamity of a mistake.
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Any player that loses us so many points every season has no right to be on the bench. let alone a first team regular.
I think people are confusing a few decent displays with him being a good player.
All he does in these better performances is what he is supposed to do and even then he manages to lose us points with stupid mistakes every few games.
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no it wouldn’t.
Overcomplicating, boring, defensive, conservative.
I’m sorry. But I just massively disagree
For one, ødegaard is already defensively better if he can play this pass
Because it would lead to conceding one less goal
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Ceballos has also been privy to some awful mistakes like in the Europa League. His forward passing of late has been very disappointing too and being outperformed on this aspect by Xhaka is pretty embarrassing. At his best I do think he’s all-round better than Xhaka but he has himself to blame for not establishing the position as his own.
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Posted Sokratis’ interview in his own thread. But here’s what he said on Xhaka
“He’s a very important player for Arsenal and I believe that he’s a good player who can be a leader in the team.
"When you make one mistake everybody will go against you, but I know Granit’s character.
"Before the Burnley game he played five or six games where he was probably the best player in the team.
“I think he’s one of Arsenal’s best players and certainly one of the best midfielders that I’ve played with.”
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Ex teammate has something nice to say about former colleague in the days before they play against each other, somebody get on to the papers ASAP, this is huge news.
Xhaka is fucking wank and fucking Sokratis ain’t changing my mind.
There, enjoy the bite. Good 
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Xhaka had 5 man of the match performances? Yeah ok Sok.
“When you make one mistake everybody will go against you, but I know Granit’s character.”
If he made one mistake it wouldn’t be a problem but he has made enough mistakes to make a feature length documentary.
A good game from Xhaka would be considered an adequate game for a top quality midfielder.
I wonder why Sokratis is bigging up such a calamitous player before his team play us, in such an important game?
Anyone would think that Olympiacos want Xhaka to play so he can do one of his trademark stupid tackles or passes to the opposition.
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We talk about what we should do with Ceballos and Guendouzi and if we should sign another centre midfielder, but this cunt is under contract for another two years. Is used a lot by Arteta too. I’m afraid we will have to deal with another season Xhaka in midfield.
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I thought he was leaving in the summer but I really doubt it now. He has fully recovered from the backlash after the Burnley incident. You’re gonna ask which one, because he fucked up in both. 
Anyway, talking about the red card.
Unless some really good offer comes then he will stay. Arteta is loyal to him and he is loyal to Arteta.
It is what it is.
Yeah. Like you say; Arteta seems to really trust him, any disconnect between him or the fans died down, because nobody can visit the stadium, he’s not old still 28, under contract for another two years. I just don’t see any path of him falling out of the team in a short period of time.
Has he? 
I think so. I don’t see people giving him as much shit as they used to. Granted, I feel most have conceded that their complaints won’t change his status within the team while Arteta is here.
Well if that’s the case clearly I’m not doing a good enough job trying to turn people against him. :bellcry:
It’s because Dani turned out worse.
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What style you daft prick? 
Giving us a heart attack against both Benfica and Olympiacos. 
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We reached the EL quarters in style? 
This guy is a total fucking nutjob.
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Nah I can’t believe he said that. It must be lost in translation. People without English as their first language don’t tend to say “what with” either.
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