Arsenal: Granit Xhaka disciplinary solutions already happening

Arsenal’s Swiss commando Granit Xhaka has admitted that he aims to cut down on cards, but his disciplinary solutions are already nearly complete.

If you tuned in midway through Arsenal’s last season, there was one narrative that would probably have captured your attention, and that was the belief that Granit Xhaka was overrated, a liability and a terrible tackler.

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Only half of one of those three things was actually true (his tackling is subpar) and that remains true today.

People were livid at Xhaka’s disciplinary faults, but when you really get down to the numbers alone, you don’t see an epidemic of any sorts.

Xhaka accumulated just one yellow card in his first ten games and then he acquired his first rough patch. A red card followed by two yellow cards in his first three matches. Then it went spotless again. Thirteen straight matches without a card.

But then another rough patch. A red followed by five straight yellows or six in his next seven matches. And again, another solid patch of two yellow cards in his final thirteen with one final yellow in the FA Cup Final.

There are quite a bit of cards there, but the distribution of them is what I want you to pay attention to. He would go through ten to thirteen match streaks without yellow cards. His accumulation came in patches and that is a much easier fix than having to deal with a yellow card consistently every third match.

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And we saw it really clean up towards the end of the season especially. Which Xhaka himself has pointed out, as quoted by the Evening Standard:

"I am hoping to have less cards this season and build on the end of last season where I already had less."

I have often applauded Xhaka’s self-awareness and here we have it again. He understands that there were streaks in the season where his discipline was all over the place, but he also understands that it improved. And so long as something is headed in a positive trajectory, all we can do is wait for it to work itself out.

Which is exactly what was happening with Xhaka last year. Towards the end of the year, he would go matches without even a single foul.

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So in case you were wondering, this goal that Xhaka has set for himself is already majority of the way towards being accomplished. And if he has set his mind to it, you can damn well rest assured that it will be completed.