Arteta admits he is worried about Xhaka’s injury

Granit Xhaka was a surprise inclusion in Mikel Arteta’s starting XI yesterday and many Arsenal fans questioned why the Boss would change a team that had won three gamres in a row, but he fully justified his place as he completely dominated the midfield.

In particular he made the Spurs midfielder Pierre-Emile Højbjerg look like an untrained amateur, taking him out at will and sending perfect passes to send our forwards off towards LLoris’ goal.

It was his perfect long ball that ended with Smith-Rowe setting up Aubameyang after just 7 minutes which very nearly gave us the lead, but our captain was just offside anyway and it wouldn’t have counted. But just a few minutes later Xhaka slipped the ball through to Martin Odegaard, and Smith-Rowe was fed by Saka to finish the move to give us the lead.

Just before the half-hour mark it was Xhaka that rescued Ramsdale from a dodgy pass at the back and then found Smith-Rowe yet again, which very quickly ended up with Aubameyang doubling our lead.

Less than ten minutes later, the game was as good as over when Saka got his well-deserved goal to make it three to the Gunners.

The whole team seemed exhausted in the last 20 minutes of the game, but Arteta didn’t make any changes until Xhaka was cruelly injured in a collision with Lucas Moura, which could have seriously damaged his knee. Mikel Arteta explained the Xhaka situation after the game: “Obviously we had to think about it, we had different options to play against them.” the boss told Arsenal.com. “We believed that the way they set up and what we wanted to do in the game, it was the right call to do that. I understand that a lot of people will say, ‘You won the last two games, why change it?’ but we did it with the intention that it was the right thing to do to start the game and then change it, and unfortunately he got injured. I’m pretty worried because it doesn’t look very positive at the moment.”

Let’s all hope it is not as serious as it looked….

Tags tottenham Xhaka

20 Comments

  1. Xhaka surprised me with his play. out until arteta learn when t replace a player, we would always be victim of avoidable injuries. why leaving Xhaka on after he showed signs of injury and we are leading comfortably? arteta’ s player mgt is the main cause of our injuries. get well soon bros.

  2. Xhaka surprised me with his play. but until arteta learn when to replace a player, we would always be victim of avoidable injuries. why leaving Xhaka on after he showed signs of injury and we are leading comfortably? arteta’ s player mgt is the main cause of our injuries. get well soon bros.

  3. Xhaka surprised me with his play yesterday. but until arteta learn when to replace a player, we would always be victim of avoidable injuries. why leaving Xhaka on after he showed signs of injury and we are leading comfortably? arteta’ s player mgt is the main cause of our injuries. get well soon bros.

  4. With the best will in the World Pat, I think you have gone way over the top in your assess!ent of Xhaka’s performance yesterday.I would however like to highlight just how well Gabriel and Partey did in nullifying any attacking threat from Spurs.I have been critical of Gabriel in the past, but he seems to have overcome his communication difficulties, and I thought he and Pastry were excellent.Let’s hope that they stay fit and that Xhaka is not seriously injured.

    1. Xhaka was class yesterday Grandad

      I actually had a pastry at half time, a lovely cornish pasty and it was excellent too.

      All jokes aside, go watch the game again and watch Xhaka as your focal point, watch his positioning passing and his general play was top draw.

      I’m not Xhaka’s biggest fan but i will give credit when its warranted

      1. @val ,while he had a decent game I will agree with you on (as did the whole team )it’s his constant pulling back of players and making silly unnecessary fouls that wind me up and he was at it again yesterday ,this is just having come back from a 3 game ban for leaving us in the sh1t against Man City .

  5. I’m still very surprise why some of us can’t see the importance of Granit Xhaka in our midfield. I believe some are having a rethink after Sunday’s display, while others are still not totally convinced of his consistency. Whatever ur thought on Xhaka, he still is Granite Xhaka. I’m glad Arsenal chooses 2 keep him. What a fighter he is!

  6. I think the reason why the jury is still out on Xhaka is due to his past reputation and performances. He’s been rightly criticised for being a one dimensional player whose style of play inhibits Arsenal ie slowing the game down with negative backward and sideways passing. Maybe that’s how he has been coached by Arteta and he was following orders. Maybe Arteta has a new team ethos now which means redeploying xhaka in a different mode. I was pleased with his performance against spurs yesterday and hope it’s not a one off.

  7. Arsenal is getting red hot in form in d both men and women team. D men won 3-1, women destroyed their title rival in city 5-0 ND re yet to even draw a match in any competition
    Long may this wonderful feeling around d club continue Amen

  8. Glad most of our fans are beginning to appreciate Granit now than all the most unjustified criticism. long may it continue…

    1. “Unjustified criticism? ” Ye Gods! Never has criticism been MORE deserved than with this long term, team damaging, so called, “player”!

  9. Xhaka played well yesterday, no doubt, but he should avoid unnecessary hard and unwanted tackles, which would prove expensive for him as well as for the team. Get well soon Xhaka you played really well yesterday.

  10. It’s easy to appreciate someone when the whole team plays brilliantly, but let me ask you this, who exactly didn’t play as well as Xhaka in this match? I can probably only name 2-3 that were around his level and 8-9 that performed better.

    Also in that 2nd goal build up, Xhaka was basically just lucky that Hojbjerg miscontrolled and his contact wasn’t enough for it to be given as a foul despite him being extremely late.

    1. much more logical assessment of the situation Bob…as you know, ever since Pat predicted that Xhaka wouldn’t be leaving in the summer, he’s been on a seemingly constant quest to both protect this average, at best, PL midfielder, from criticism and oversell his contributions…when properly evaluating yesterday’s match, Xhaka would be an afterthought in the equation, unless you were discussing his sometimes woeful defensive play and needlessly reckless tackles/shirt tugs…thank you for bringing some reason back into the conversation

  11. Because of his lack of pace,he is obliged to resort to fouling ,and as he simply cannot cover the ground quickly he rarely gets into positions to make interceptions and stifle attacks.To be fair to the man, he has a terrific left foot, recycles the ball well and is rarely injured.Overall, yesterday I thought he did well but he was not at all as exceptional as suggested by the writer of the article.

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