Does Xhaka have a point about Arsenal’s start to EPL season?

One look at the Premier League table at the moment is enough to send most Arsenal fans reaching for a strong drink, as the Gunners are not only in the bottom half of it but we are way down in 16th place and are only kept off the bottom by Brighton, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and West Ham United.

At least our next game after the international break is at home against one of the sides below us and you would expect the Gunners to take all three points. After that, however, Arsenal go to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea after the opening Europa League match at home to the German side Cologne, so it would have been good for us to get more from the opening three games than just three points as we are now under serious pressure to not lose touch with the teams at the top before the season has really got going.

That is why a lot of Arsenal fans are so upset right now and why we wanted some serious transfer action after the shaky start, but Granit Xhaka has offered a different take on the early stages of the new season, reports Metro, suggesting that apart from the below par showing against Liverpool at Anfield, the Gunners have not been as bad as painted.

He said, ‘The start against Chelsea was good.

‘Leicester it was a crazy game.

‘Against Stoke we were unhappy we lost, although we were clearly the better team.’

‘The Liverpool game we have to analyse critically… it was a bitter defeat.

‘It is not the start we wanted. But there are still 35 games ahead of us.

‘Against Liverpool, we didn’t show up on the pitch.

‘We did a lot of wrong and could not keep up with Liverpool. There are days like that, I’d prefer they didn’t happen. But If we do lose, I’d rather lose a 4-0 one than suffer four 1-0 defeats.’

I reckon he does have a point to be fair. If the players come back and put that poor performance behind them and Arsenal improve and start moving back up the table then perhaps we will soon forget the Anfield disaster. Arsenal were very unlucky against Stoke as well but we have also been very slack at the back, with Xhaka himself to blame for goals in all three EPL games.

Is Xhaka right to be a bit more positive than most Arsenal fans about the start to our season?

Bob.

21 Comments

  1. Not related to this one but from earlier title ‘are the players not playing for Wenger?’

    Boycotting matches I believe is the type of thing that leads to players like ox and mustafi wanting to get the he’ll out.
    Although there’s a lot rubbish wed like to see move on I’m not sure that we’ll be able to buy all 11 players come January.
    Also all its doing is heaping pressure on the players and making them likely to lose which will put pressure on Wenger but again from who?
    Gazidis and Keswick have no bal*s and kroenke loves Wenger.
    If Wenger was sacked it would cost the club money as he’s under contract poor performance or not.
    Is a man who likes his money so much and doesn’t care about success really going to spend money to get rid of Wenger.
    The only way Wenger will go is when he decides but even then that will take a while as they’ve no candidates lined up or anything.
    Boycotting games I don’t see working.
    I’d rather will got as many bums on seats as possible but all wearing illumine us yellow for instance the shirts saying kroenke get out.
    Empty seats other fans just laugh at us.
    Statement of organised unity will get on the news and be discussed by pundits.

    1. You need to seriously consider next time what you writte before you make the mistake in turning your self into a tool again

      I think, he she it thinks, you are dense mate, players have ambition, they dont care much about the fans more then they care aout their money and well being, so when a player gets the idea of leaving, its due the fact that they are feed up with the manager

      At other clubs when the team revolts, the manager sees the door, at Arsenal its the players, kapishhiiii??? seeeee yaaaa

    2. I completely concur with you. Players will go where they feel loved not where they are berated, where there are supportive fans not where there are always protests, boos and insults. Remember this is a competitive world. Nobody should imagine that support for the team doesn’t matter. It does greatly and that is the reason why supporters are called the twelfth man. So if we Arsenal fans think that we will persistently denigrate the team and expect positive results we are greatly mistaken. We better rethink our strategy. It is becoming apparent that fans of rival clubs are fanning the fire to further destabilise our club! It is however gratifying that the majority of our fans have already seen through this bluff and have rejected it.

  2. He is only right about there are still 35 games ahead. But the Arsenal’s display when facing Leicester, Stoke and Liverpool showed that they are still using the same obsolete system.

    Arsenal play like France national football team, but without having better skillful players. Most of their players also like to rush when possessing the ball and this habit often made them got robbed easily in the field.

    Playing with quick tempo like that could work well if the opponents want to attack. But if the opponents are very defensive, they will have problem in unlocking the opponents’ defense and could be hit easily from a quick counter-attack.

    The first half of England vs Slovakia match showed the difference in the teams’ football styles. If Arsenal could change their system to what Spain and Slovakia have displayed, they could compete with the other top teams.

  3. Xhaka has obviously been to the same bullshitting class that Gadzidis has been too.
    Of the three games:
    – we had a dogfight with Leicester who are midtable where layers like Xhaka did not make much effort defensively.
    – had lots of the ball against Stoke but only had 4 shots on target to their 6 and then thanks to the likes of Xhaka let them through to an easy goal.
    – he says we did not turn up and my question to him is why. The team itself did not have 1 shot on goal the whole game. And we were lucky they did not score more as the midfield did not cover their opposite numbers when they attacked.
    It is only the players and manager can put things right and so far they have got worse with each game. Are they tired already! I would love to know what Xhaka himself is going to do differently as he has plenty to work on and has been our worst player this season.

  4. That Xhaka is an idiot,3 assist from 3 games,can’t he learn from the mistake he made during d leicester game but he didn’t and he did d same mistake in d last 2 matches.But actually am not after the Xhaka or no Xhaka issue.Let’s plan on how to save our club from that fraudstar called Kroenke bcos i do not think we can acheive anything under him and Wenger.

  5. Stunning goal by Rashford. Wenger has showed how bad he as a manager, now, although he was probably hampered by Kroenke. He should’ve realised he couldn’t keep Traitorlain and turned the whole negative into a positive by swapping him for Mahrez, which was the easiest deal, yet he doubled down the negative by playing him on Sunday.

  6. Eric diets goal reminded me of one giroud scored well forward of the front stick.

    Players you’d have in your team and rate highly.
    Mine walker, Ali, rashford

  7. Always going to be dodgey playing at Wembley when there are spurs players in the team 🙂
    #Wembley home pitch who do.

  8. Well, he could hardly be objective and say:
    We are even worse than last year, and our manager hasn’t got a clue about how to stop us getting overrun by teams like Liverpool and leaking goals to all other teams.
    Could he?

  9. can a man who’s won the league “Unbeaten” and 7 FA Cups be labelled a bad manager? Sometimes I read comments here and I’m surprised about how careless we fans are with words… like it or not, Arsenal will never do a Chelsea that sacks manager every 2 seasons and for those that always say that the club doesn’t have a plan on replacing Wenger, it’s shocking to know that Fans these days are that informed. #Shame on these set of #ArsenalFans

  10. Its fine to lose…its part of competitive sport…
    But the fashion in which these Arsene Wenger teams lose is ridiculous, and the bad part is that it has become a norm…weak visionless players you cant believe made it to become professionals, yet the same players use to play the biggest stadiums in the world on fire…..Sorry to admit but something at Arsenal is the problem…..
    And we better find the problem before we support a second division ,has been, could have been team….

  11. Where do I start keeping Sanchez for what Arsenal not going to win the title or make to four so why not sell all the players who want to leave then reinvest in new players that make sense but arsenal club including fans remind me of flat earther go with what you think on reject all evidence

  12. True there are still 35 games to go, and true it’s better to lose 4-0 once than lose 1-0 four times. But Xhaka is relatively new to the club, and he hasn’t watched the remaining 35 games turn into a massive disappointment like us fans have been watching for years and years.

    The problem is that there is no evidence to suggest that Wenger will turn this poor start around into a solid campaign that leaves us challenging for the title at the business-end of the season. It just doesn’t happen.

  13. Everyone can have a view. But if everyone uses this freedom to talk rubbish about players and managers the team performance will never improve. One must know as a fan that 50% of a performance is mental. Mental strength comes partly from the support of fans on the pitch. We have seen how our tensions in the stands have quickly moved to the players. We must at least learn to support the team to win without playing mind games on them and making mental wrecks of these people who are already struggling for form.

  14. ” But If we do lose, I’d rather lose a 4-0 one than suffer four 1-0 defeats.” Granit, what about GD? Don’t you know that you can be beaten by GD?

  15. Here is how I see it.
    – Lucky to escape with a narrow win against Leicester.
    – Perhaps deserved at least a point against Stoke, but lost.
    – Lucky to escape a 7-0 tormenting at Liverpool.
    Yes, there are 35 more games to play; but a consistent poor performance across three games shows poor form. It’s not one odd day.

  16. Xhaka is wrong and complacent and conveniently forgets he already lost 1-0 the week before to Stoke.

    Last season we also started poorly. Had we managed to take a draw from our loss to Liverpool last season we would be in the CL this season. Had we done better against Leicester last season we also would have been in the CL.

    It is naive and reeks of complacency to think that points lost in August somehow count less than points lost in April.

    There was a time, during the early Wenger days that indeed the buffer between us and the nr 5 in the PL was large enough not to have to worry too much about 3 dropped points. Those days are gone and now the PL is extremely competitive and you can miss out on CL football by 1 point or goal difference. So our continued inability to arrive at the starting line of the PL season prepared and motivated cost us CL football last year and look like it could do the same this season.

    Points dropped should never be rationalized or justified or accepted the way Xhaka did. He conveniently fails to explain why “we didn’t show up on the pitch” as he says. For an Arsenal fan like me and many others to see your team not showing up in way too many games is becoming a habit and remains unacceptable and the clearest sign the manager has lost it.

    You can lose to a better team but you can not lose because “you didn’t show up” if you wear the Arsenal shirt.

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