Arsenal: Granit Xhaka eyeing new adjectives for his resume

Arsenal’s under-fire midfielder Granit Xhaka was a beacon of consistency against AC Milan, and that is just one of the adjectives he is adding to his resume.

If you assumed that I would be coming out with a post-win praise piece about Granit Xhaka solely because I always do, then you would be correct. Arsenal simply would not have had such a smooth sail of a match without the Swiss midfielders’s presence.

I’ll admit that Xhaka has his flaws (shocker). I had chalked one of those flaws up as a lack of versatility. He was supremely good at one thing – passing. Everything else kind of floated in between uses, sometimes awful, sometimes pretty good.

But over the past month or so, even in the horrible downturn in team form, Xhaka has started to show up in a big way, proving that he may be more versatile that we originally thought.

For starters, he has been a defensive presence in a more box-to-box role, particularly in the four losses. His ball-winning was tops on the team in those losses, which is small consolation, but still a point worth holding onto.

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He was creating chances too. Again, it’s part of the box-to-box role, so it should be expected, but it needs to be stated that he did his job and that is something worth celebrating.

Against AC Milan, Xhaka was tossed back into a deeper role. While the formation varied between a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-3-3, Xhaka was always the deepest midfielder, a role that had previous been ill-suited for him, but a role that, suddenly, he seemed perfectly comfortable in.

Xhaka was flawless on the day, save for one poor pass to Jack Wilshere late in the game. Stationed in between the endless energies of Aaron Ramsey and Wilshere, Xhaka found that he had so much space to play with that no one could stop him. He was under no pressure and he truly settled into his element, which was a joy to watch.

He wasn’t a box-to-box midfielder. He didn’t move much. He was a control tower. And this coming after proving himself a surprisingly capable box-to-box midfielder, despite the losses.

It’s early returns on this midfield, but if Wilshere and Ramsey free up Xhaka consistently like they did against Milan, then he can start eyeing two crucial adjectives to his resume – consistent and versatile.

Next: Arsenal vs AC Milan Player Ratings

These are two things not even I thought I would be attributing to him anytime soon, but seeing what he was able to do in the long-craved midfield trio, it looks like a very real possibility for the future.

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