Arsenal: Granit Xhaka Discipline No Cause For Concern

Arsenal signed Granit Xhaka well aware of what they were getting. A couple yellows and a red is no reason to sound the alarms.

Everyone is freaking out about Granit Xhaka’s disciplinary record all of a sudden, simply because Arsene Wenger came out and said that he was concerned. The newest Arsenal midfielder picked up a rather harsh red card against Swansea and his three game suspension is being served currently.

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Xhaka does have a history of accumulating cards, but there is no reason to be concerned here, for numerous reasons.

First of all, in his prior history of ‘disciplinary’ problems, there was only one really bad year, and that was in 2015/16 where he racked up five red cards and three yellow cards. The red cards are a red flag, but again, one year? I’m not worried.

He does have two previous seasons with ten yellow cards each and one red card each, but if you avoid red, you’re doing okay.

Now that he has come to Arsenal, he has two yellow cards and a red in 600 minutes. Obviously it’s not the ideal situation, but to voice any sort of ‘concern’ feels not only far too premature but also wholly unwarranted.

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He has had some poor tackles, granted. So has Shkodran Mustafi. Both are still very young in their English journeys and as such, they have a certain grace period to play around with. Remember the grace period Mesut Ozil had? Yeah, it was 18 months long.

That isn’t the only reason why I find this sudden claim of concern rather foolish. It’s a part of the job. Grzegorz Krychowiak picked up 18 yellow cards in a single season once. Does that make him a lesser DM?

Even if the idea is to iron out these yellow cards and see more control and wiser tackles, that’s easily done. Francis Coquelin once had a yellow card problem. When he first returned to Arsenal after his loan to Charlton Athletic, he racked up five yellow cards in just a few months.

There were mutterings that it was a problem, but lo and behold, with patience came a disappearance of yellow cards until Coquelin rarely picked them up anymore.

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Xhaka has only played 600 minutes in North London. Let’s not freak out about something that has proven to be a minor problem. He won’t be picking up this many cards throughout his stay at the Emirates. Rest assured.