I still think we’re better without him because it should force the club to evolve the midfield to a model that relies on a faster tempo and fewer morons.
The concern for me is that Arteta sees Neves as a younger Xhaka. I don’t trust Arteta’s eye for players at all.
But what if it doesn’t? People keep saying Xhaka is shit. And yes I know there are better players, but until we sign one of those better players the fact remains that he is our best midfielder. Obviously a fit on form Partey would be better, but we’ve hardly seen that since we signed him.
Personally I admire your conviction, place gets too echo chambery when everyone agrees with everyone and shoots down anyone who wants to go against the grain.
If it doesn’t than the club will have failed.
We are still better off without him. I like my midfielders smart, mobile and without a victim complex.
Doesn’t this take us back though too the fact he was a major signing expected to take us forward. He’s never run the midfield or produced anything special for us to build anything on or around.
At best this season he has sat in and mostly eradicated mistakes and isn’t fucking Dani boy. Him leaving is the main chance of tactical change in our midfield otherwise we are doomed again in mediocrity.
Arteta won’t develop with him in the side and the team won’t.
Arteta in the last chance saloon here and his midfield is the biggest problem.
Partey and Xhaka worked to a degree but it’s nowhere near enough to control and dictate or impose enough over a period of time in a season.
Prove it. From the games he didn’t play, show me how we were better
Again. Think people are not getting my point. Look at our current squad from last couple of seasons and tell me how he is not in the best XI. Look at our midfielders ffs. It’s not his fault if he isn’t Vieira, or if we don’t have other good players.
People can’t prove it, because the sad reality is we’re marginally better with Xhaka in the team as much as people like to say otherwise.
Now if we make a quality CM signing replacing Xhaka then that’ll be ideal.
If the clients were calling you a cunt you would haha. If not your business is broke and you have to take any amount of shit to stay afloat.
The simple fact is fans gave him dogs abuse, Xhaka gestures, fans real in horror that someone dared not take abuse like some abused broken whore.
Yep. I’m with you there. And I’ve never said otherwise. People keep mentioning past and future/made up signings to make their point, whereas I am using the present/our current squad.
I am spending far too much time defending a player I don’t actually care about, lol. But it bothers me that people class him as one of our worst ever signings when we have signed so many numpties.
I think moving to a faster midfield will make the team better. I can’t prove it yet because only half the job is done. His availability is his biggest asset but it also duped three different coaches into building a team around him and his weaknesses. That’s why when he doesn’t play people think we look disjointed. Of course we look disjointed when the midfielder we mistakenly built around isn’t there.
Controversial take but I also think having a guy who told the fans to fuck off and made the whole thing about him is probably not a great person to keep around when stadiums are full again.
Only read the first line and you’re using future tense. I want to know why Xhaka is the worst signing. I want to see evidence of us being better without him with the squad we had in the last season.
While correct, the point of selling him at a large loss is to fund someone the manager views as a better midfielder. How much he succeeds in doing so is another matter. But the fact we want to get rid points to the fact the management consider there’s many better options to be had
This really isn’t the point at all. The games with him aren’t good enough. That’s what we need to move on from.
“We are shit without Xhaka” is an excellent argument to combat “We are shit with Xhaka”.
Pretty sure “We are shit without Mustafi as well”
I disagree 
Xhaka is fucking garbage. Emery is an attacking manager, and he made accommodations for Xhaka to stay in the team. Which resulted in a barrage on our goal pretty much every single match, because Xhaka is shit. He’s got one decent skill and that’s passing the ball forward. So when Mikel ends up being the cowardly manager he is, who doesn’t have a single attack minded/beautiful football bone in his body, Xhaka actually looks half way decent because we are parking the bus and he can’t be exposed for the shit he is. Gotta think about why another cowardly manager who’s made parking the bus famous, actually wants to buy Mr house keys…
The one time we actually have looked convincing as a team was last summer when we beat City, Lolpool, and Chelsea playing a 343. AMN did all the defensive and b2b work on the left and Xhaka was just kinda there making some decent passes.
And how many of those numpties cost 35m?
One. Mustafi.
Get used to people thinking two of the most expensive players we’ve signed, who were shit for us and miles off expectations, were two of our worst ever signings. Ask any fan who their team’s worst ever transfer is and I guarantee nearly all of them will consider the fee to be a massive part of the equation. You might not like it, but it is one of the key factors.
If that bothers you you’re really just gonna have to come to terms with it lol.
Is this like the time that Arsenal fans were mean about Chelsea and it just made you like them more and want to defend them? 
Shall we rewind to how much our shit players of the past would cost now?
Hence why this is recency bias.
I am dying on this hill.
Well if we do that we can boost Xhaka’s fee up a bit too as spending 35m five years ago is different to spending 35m today. Aston fucking Villa now spend that on Championship midfielders, when we spent that most other sides couldn’t, and it bought a supposedly top talent from the Bundesliga not the Championship. When we signed him he was one of the top 5/10 (my memory is poor) most expensive central midfielders ever.
But totally fine if you wanna die on a hill defending Xhaka and Chelsea, if you want to use your energy and credibility fighting two unwinnable fights then in a way I have to admire that lol.