Clearly a lot of fans care about being told to fuck off by the teams captain mate. It’s just a boring take to call it “Karen vibes”.
Him picking his nose while we conceded will annoy me a million times more than him telling us to fuck off tbh.
Which is strange because with another player I might even find it funny. The situation with Xhaka is a straw on the camels back type scenario
Gotta say, I do too find it amusing that people want an apology. He lost his rag at work, he didn’t shoot your mum.
The truth of the matter is people just don’t like Xhaka, so they act like they would like him more if he apologised to them. When really, they wouldn’t. They’d just hate on him for something else.
The Xhaka agenda is my favourite one. I was especially fond of that week where I saw a couple of people on here and loads on Twitter blame him for a mistake that happened in a game he didn’t even play in. People just make things up about him. @Cristo can attest to this, he can’t forgive Xhaka for all the own goals he scores. Spoiler alert: Xhaka hasn’t scored an own goal.
Wasn’t Mikel here during the winter window when Xhaka was going to move to Hertha? That’s what I was referencing, blocking his move away from the club.
@Phoebica that’s fair, I can’t speak for others but if he did apologize or at least acknowledge he did something wrong in that situation, I doubt I’d have less of an issue with him.
He’s an incredibly flawed player who has held us back for years and cost us top four. Pile on top the fact he’s a ticking time bomb, his behavior towards the fans, talking openly in the press about wanting to leave and saying he was happy with his season when we were playing like shit…ehh no thanks. Sometimes you get a player with a game or skills you don’t like and a persona you don’t like. Xhaka is definitely that for me. (Contrast it with a guy with talent you like and a persona you dislike, like Nasri. Or a guy with talent you like and persona you like, Santi Cazorla, or a guy with skills you don’t like and a persona you like, Alex Iwobi)
I have no idea what goes on in the background with Xhaka but someone at the club wants him here, that’s been going on before Arteta, hell before Emery.
The fuck off situation should have been handled like we’ve handled Auba but there’s clearly politics at play. I do think Mikel likes him though which I can’t abide but then again he was first name for Emery and Wenger too
The Xhaka incident wasn’t handled by the board at all.
This is where the problem escalated out of control.
No fan of Emery but they hung him out to dry on that one.
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I have not taken any player apology seriously. It is just an absurd concept to apologise publicly for trivial matters.
Fans have the right to boo, player has the right to react, we hate him, he is not fond of us…life goes on
If you believe the reports at the time we had a solid offer from Hertha Berlin in late December (25m or something) this is around the time Arteta was officially appointed and was getting his bearings. Again if you believe the reports the move was all set to go ahead (Xhaka wanted to leave at that time) until Arteta persuaded him to stay about a week or so into January.
Yeh I remember that but why did this happen again with Roma this summer. You can’t tell me there isn’t something weird af going on behind the scenes there. I refuse to believe it’s all as simple as Arteta can’t do without him, otherwise the Roma links would never have materialised
My personal theory, to touch on what you and @RockyMaivia are saying, is that Arteta would sanction the sale of Xhaka in a heart beat if we signed a midfielder that was better than him. Because we haven’t, he simply doesn’t want to let someone he views as a locker room leader go.
And I also think Arteta knows you can’t sign 8 first team players in a year and he’s prioritised other positions in that time - he’s pretty much viewed Xhaka as not being someone who needs replacing imminently and someone he can hold onto for another year or two
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This holds a lot of water when you look at the timeline and how things played out tbh.
If that’s true then why extend him?
When the Roma deal collapsed we didn’t have to give him a new contract. That’s the part I don’t get. If Arteta truly was only keeping him here because he was the best of a bad bunch, why complicate the exit process by giving him more money and a longer deal?
I largely agree with SCRJJ’s take tbh. I think there might be some politics at the club where Xhaka is thought of quite well, this dates all the way back to Wenger’s era. Who his guardian angel is on the board I have no idea, I just think Xhaka is a fantastic sycophant who knows how to keep the higher ups sweet. Unfortunately someone like Auba doesn’t have that craftiness.
Extending him can be reasoned by the clubs need to maintain some value when they do decide to sell. That’s the only logical explanation I have.
He hasn’t actually had a horrible season and if we finish in the top 4, and we do decide to sell him, then buying clubs will look at our league position, his injury record, the length of his contract and at least accept if they want him it’s £20m (just a random figure)
That’s fair. He has looked okay to good since coming back, but we all know what’s just around the corner.
I’m just annoyed that we were so close to being rid of him (purely from a style of play standpoint, because he puts a ceiling on how dynamic our midfield can be) and we couldn’t get the deal done.
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So far so good from Xhaka
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Nothing new there
It had to be him taking that kind of risk didnt it. Not a penalty but a silly foul to make
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Xhaka costing us a penalty with another stupid mistake, nothing new there
Stupid but that cunt was already hitting the deck. Hope he cracks him with a challenge.