Arteta loves him but still told Jamie Carragher that he (Arteta) delivered an ultimatum to Xhaka about staying in the team.
I think the fact Vieira has come on for Xhaka twice (albeit to little impact) is a clue that Arteta knows there’s an issue and/or we’ve reached our ceiling with Xhaka in the left eight.
Assuming Partey’s injury issues continue, I’d like to see Jorginho at the base with Trossard and Odegaard ahead of him, especially if we’re going to see a lot of the ball anyway.
If Partey is back quickly, I think it would be interesting to play Partey in that left eight to see what he can offer. I think his drive from that side may give defenses an extra wrinkle. Xhaka just can’t really move like that.
Legs and form gone for now. Boss has to switch him out and probably change the midfield shape and quickly. Think we could benefit from actually slowing the play down a bit now. Xhaka can always cover us later.
I’d say Partey-Jorginho double pivot to control possession better. Give Odegaard the full number 10 treatment. Clearly something has to change.
Yeah atm while off form he is kind of a liability both ways (like he used to be imho)… that one moment probably in the 70+ minute range where McGinn just basically spun him around and walked past him with the ball… I think Xhaka swiped his arm out and then just threw them up like “where is my help?”
Lol… just fucking contain the guy you doofus - it was the worst form of marking/not-marking you can do.
He’s had a good season. Need the good Xhaka back, but atm I agree with Flexo, get Partey, Gigi, Ode in.
Nice to have the option. Smith-Rowe could also be a dark horse for the Xhaka role. I wonder if we’ll ever see Zinny there as a more than capable left footer and there is flimsy Fabio.
Xhaka has looked out on his feet since the second half of the City game.
Was it really that bad? It was an excellent goal and a great dummy by Buendia. Xhaka was in the right place to cover Buendia.
I certainly think Xhaka’s lack of athleticism and genuone scoring threat is an issue for us but I didn’t really think he was the main culprit for goal #2 yesterday. White was worse due to allowing the run in behind to create the move.
Yeah, tbh looked much worse at the first sight, on the first replay I saw… Still doesn’t look good, but not as bad as I thought.
Yeah, White was much worse, a very weak reaction. Made a pretty naive run thinking that guy is going to get the ball in his feet. Usually rarely makes such naive reactions, quite strange to see him like that.
Similar with Saliba on the first goal. He was great in dealing with similar one on one situations so far this season… Idk what happen with both of them there. Arteta can hardly do much about such individual errors/bad reactions.