I think Partey was a 4/10 today and Xhaka a 6/10. I’d be hard pressed to pick players who scored any more than a 7.
Think Xhaka most definitely should not have played 90 minutes today. But also, people have made their mind up about him. And will not budge. There are a few other players whose threads should be more busy than this one.
I’d say Xhaka 4/10 and Partey 3/10.
After all these years, I really wonder why
Because people watch but do not see
I don’t know what you’ve been watching but I’ve seen plenty of red cards, own goals and mistakes leading to goals to know that Xhaka is an awful player for us and should be nowhere near the team.
He needs to stick to slower paced international football for Switzerland where he has all the time in the world to pick his diagonal passes to fullbacks.
How many own goals has Xhaka scored while playing for us? I can’t remember any, but you remember plenty?
Partey was awful both in the stats and the eye test.
It’s all Xhaka’s fault though
Who’s said that ? Most people are saying Partey was terrible tonight and Xhaka was only poor.
Well Cristo for one with his “Xhaka plays and we lose” comment. But the general feeling is Xhaka is shit and shouldn’t be near our team. Which shouldn’t be the feeling in general anyway, but especially not after tonight’s match because he was far from the main culprit. People are aiming their annoyance at the wrong player.
I don’t think we should be picking out individuals too much, Xhaka is just part of a whole host of problems as to why we aren’t a contender and or CL side.
Xhaka is terrible. Most open I’ve seen Arsenal in the midfield since, well right around the time Xhaka got injured strangely enough 
A lot of us don’t like Xhaka. He was bad tonight, as was the entire team. Multiple things can be true.
Xhaka shouldn’t be at the club and Partey played like crap and Arteta is a bad coach.
Multiple things can be true, but Xhaka is definitely the main scapegoat when he shouldn’t be. He is not our biggest problem.
Our biggest problem is the coach.
The players aren’t good enough but they’re better than this.
But Xhaka is emblematic of Arteta’s tenure. Arteta begged him to stay, got him to sign an extension, he obviously likes him — in the same way he obviously dislikes Pepe — and believes Xhaka should be a big part of the team. Xhaka is a security blanket for him. That’s why he put him back in the XI with zero warm up time, cameos or random U23 matches after injury. And big shock, he played like shit, like he usually does.
So no, Xhaka isn’t our biggest problem but he represents our biggest problem, a coach that can’t get out of his own way.
We would have continued being average without the help from Xhaka if he was out for rest of the season.
So fucking gutted that he has come back so soon.
I know you are being deliberate Phoebica but you still manage to wind me.
Nothing Arsenal related winds me more than our fans who have watched Xhaka for 6 consecutive seasons of being shit, telling other fans how Xhaka is not shit.
I really don’t know what else is a player supposed to do to be any more shit.
I finally understand why Xhaka gets picked by manager after manager—He’s a yes-man. Plain and simple.
There’s no reason a player that belongs in a mid-table Series A team should be afforded as many chances as Granit Xhaka has unless he has his head firmly up the managers ass.
He dictates to the rest of the team on behalf of the manager. It’s not about his ability or so called leadership.
He’s the player version of Arteta. Limited yes-man.
Honestly a lot of it has to do with the fact that we just simply have not properly addressed the position. you need 2 really good players in CM and we have none. Partey was supposed to be one, but he’s been crap compared to the lofty expectations we had for him. Sambi is a nice young player but no way is ready and El Neny is… nuff said.
Xhaka is crap and also has profoundly bad and annoying weaknesses for the role (slow thinker AND slow mover), but he may be legitimately one of our two best CM… that just shows that while we have done a nice job elsewhere (GK, CB, LB, RB), we have a few positions where we have got major issues - CM, striker, wing attacker if you will.
People defending him though - lord, I don’t get it… he does way more damage to the functioning of the side b/c of those weaknesses than people even realize or can be captured in stats - so much of football is off-the-ball positioning and movement and his pea brain not only doesn’t think quick, but he also seems to have little awareness of what is around him (in such stark contrast to our little geniuses of Cesc and Santi). This forces him to react and also gets him into trouble with fouls (he has a rep, yeah… its largely deserved though - when you are constantly not in the right position (even micro- where do you start on your approach to opponent?), you are going to get more of those kinds of fouls that get you into trouble.
Anyway, we are going nowhere fast with this manager (as others have said, our #1 issue by far) and with this CM (Partey looks toast to me too, which is tragic as he was certainly a good player pre-Arsenal).
He isn’t the reason we lost but he still isn’t good enough for a team who wants to challenge for a top four place.
No other big club in the PL would have him starting for them, let alone be their captain.
He’s too slow, constantly getting booked or sent off, makes too many stupid tackles, gives the ball away too easily and has poor decision making.
The only other person at the club, who is as lacking in flair as Xhaka, is the person who keeps picking him and making him captain.
What exactly is his area of expertise as a professional footballer?
By the way, making short sideways passes to a player standing next to him doesn’t count as a skill.