Arsenal: Granit Xhaka Highlights Wenger’s Pros And Cons

Arsene Wenger has been ever-so hesitant to put Granit Xhaka in Arsenal’s starting XI, which highlights all the pros and cons of Le Prof.

The talk of the Arsenal world recently has been what the plan is for Granit Xhaka. Arsene Wenger said before the Hull City match that we should have patience and understand that Xhaka needs time. That’s well and good, but it doesn’t make us forget how positive he looked against Watford before being inexplicably benched.

Related: 5 Things We Learned Against Hull City

And now that Xhaka has scored his screamer, the questions are louder than ever. Does he start? Or does he continue to make it clear that he should be starting with 15 or so minutes a match?

It’s a tough decision because their are pros and cons either way. Whatever the decision, we can also look at Wenger’s handling of Granit Xhaka and see in crystal clear colors the pros and cons that Le Prof himself has when it comes to managing his players. What makes it even more interesting is that every pro could be a con and every con could be a pro, depending on how you look at it.

The most obvious pro/con debate is Wenger’s faith towards his existing players. Both Cazorla and Coquelin have started over Xhaka despite the Swiss bursting down the door and it’s because Wenger does not feel the need to make any significant changes to the team, especially in an area that has worked so well.

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Another pro/con is Wenger’s determination to stay the course. It was Sir Alex Ferguson that said that no matter what, managers must stay the course and Wenger is nothing if not a direct disciple of that belief.

A third pro/con is Wenger’s caution. This goes hand in hand with the ‘stay the course’ aspect, but Wenger has always shown that caution beats taking risks. Starting Xhaka is a calculated risk for Wenger, yet he is still unwilling to do it because he has found his winning formula. Meaning that until there is a team disaster or until Cazorla or Coquelin royally Coq up their position, Xhaka will remain on the bench.

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It all depends on your opinion of Wenger whether you think that these things are pros and cons, but regardless, Xhaka has brought to the forefront all of them. He may have promised Xhaka paradise, but I hope he also informed him of how hard he would have to fight for that paradise.