Arsenal: Granit Xhaka right about more than one thing

Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka has spoken about the character of the team following the Swansea City match, and he’s right about more than that.

Arsenal’s win over Swansea City was not an easy one, but unlike the match against Watford, when obstacles presented themselves, the Gunners were not bowled over. Instead, they stepped up, gave more, and came away with the victory.

And of course, with Watford dropping points, people are going to look back to Troy Deeney’s critique of Arsenal’s character.

Granit Xhaka spoke up about the character of the club, saying (as quoted by the Daily Mail):

"It’s the third time in a week that the team have come from behind to win, that says a lot about this team.Lots of people talk about the character of our team, that it’s not right and that we need to do more. But we always show that we can come back.Today we were 1-0 down, last week we were 1-0 down, but we turned the games around and that shows the character of this team."

Granit Xhaka is absolutely right, and you can’t deny it. Arsenal have gone down 1-0 in three straight matches and in three straight matches they have won. That is the very definition of character and we have every right to celebrate in this revelation.

But you can extrapolate Xhaka’s comments from there and say that aside from the team bucking up and showing character, two guys that were most critiqued for the Watford defeat have done the same on an individual basis.

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Xhaka is one of those guys. After sitting at the top of Arsenal’s 18 yard box and watching Tom Cleverly pump home the Hornet’s winning goal, Xhaka has been different. He is getting back to defend and, against Swansea, that was incredibly clear.

He is also taking a more active role in pushing the ball forward. Again, it was against Swansea that we saw him doing far less of his horizontal, nowhere passing and far more of him trying things. It had been awhile since he resorted to his usual long balls in this extreme capacity, but against the Swans, he sent in 19 long balls, many of which were sent into the box, and 15 were accurate.

Most notable was the one that found Sead Kolasinac, which turned into Aaron Ramsey‘s goal.

The other guy is Mesut Ozil. Ozil was highly criticized for his part in the Watford defeat and, like Xhaka, he has shown tremendous character to step up and be a prominent piece of the Gunner’s attack. He has created 13 chances in 180+ minutes since that match, adding a goal and two assists.

Next: Arsenal vs Swansea City Player Ratings

That is an abundance of character coming from sources that were under the microscope and they deserve their plaudits.

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