There has been a lot of discussion about Mikel Arteta moving Granit Xhaka into the left-back position against Brighton, rather than playing the like-for-like replacement of Nuno Tavares.
The youngster was excellent earlier this season when he was covering for Tierney, but with the Scotsman out again until the end of the season, Mikel Arteta seems to have decided that Tavares is not in the right frame of mind to be capable of replacing Tierney.
This is what Arteta said in yesterday’s press conference. He was first asked if he didn’t trust Tavares and he replied: “No, the trust comes from the way I communicate with them. That I give them the right reasons, when I put a player on the pitch it’s because I can see that they are in the right condition to do that. To show trust and for the player to show trust to us is that I’m going to give them the opportunity when I believe that he is ready to do that. When I see in the moment that he is doubting I don’t do him any favours by putting him in there. Then you can discuss whether Granit can play there, just look at the stats when the team has played with Granit as a left-back. They don’t get much better than that.”
Well we all know those stats were not improved in last weeks game against Brighton, when our mifield and defence were over-run by Brighton. So Arteta was pressed again and was then asked if the Portugese youngster had lost his belief: “With Nuno? No. Not belief. He needs to go through periods, like I can show you examples of any player that has been in this squad. Not always good periods, difficult periods. But those difficult periods are the best moments to learn and to overcome and to have the ability afterwards to develop into a much better player.”
It’s not going to be so easy to get his confidence and belief back if he doesn’t play, but it certainly sounds like the youngster is still going to be left on the bench. Let’s hope Arteta’s decision is the right one today….
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Video – Mikel Arteta on the Southampton clash and our injury situation