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Arsenal: Granit Xhaka The Field Marshall Against Manchester United
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal enter a tough match up against Manchester United due to the venue. All eyes will be on Granit Xhaka to lead this team, to victory.
Here we have two very confident teams. Arsenal and Manchester United, the two most successful teams in English football history. No matter where their current status takes them, they will be looking to control the game and win the battle for three points.
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Especially at Old Trafford.
Manchester United are not in the best of standings and they have been incredibly inconsistent this year, but Jose Mourinho has a knack for being a bugger, and he is going to pull out all the stops to take down his arch rival.
That will involve a lot of changing on the fly, as the game progresses. That is what the Special One does. Sometimes to his detriment, sometimes to his benefit. But there will be changes and, as always, that will test the malleability of Wenger’s hard-nosed tactics.
Mainly, it will test the midfield. Which will fall on Granit Xhaka.
The Swiss bruiser has yet to face a match up in the Premier League quite like what he is going to experience this weekend. It will test his ability to adjust on the go and it will be another crucial audition for his continued stay in the starting XI.
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Without Santi Cazorla in the middle of the pitch and with Wenger highly unlikely to bend his formula and let Ramsey sneak into the central midfield positions, Xhaka is going to be the general, the commander-in-chief. Which means that we have to hope that he picked up some useful pointers against Tottenham.
One detail that was noticed by the commentators against Tottenham was that Arsenal’s midfield combination of Coquelin and Xhaka does one thing very well – they man mark. But give them space and they don’t necessarily know how to deal with it. They look for someone to mark.
Coquelin can do that. By all means, he can. That’s his gig. But Xhaka has to be the open field commander. He has to be the Santi Cazorla of the pitch, and that starts with knowing how to navigate space with and without the ball.
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With the backing of Santi Cazorla, I have faith that Xhaka can rise to this occasion. He will be opposite my favorite villain, Paul Pogba, and a nice, strong, dominant showing would be simply sublime.