Arsenal: Granit Xhaka giving us the only thing we, as fans, can ask for

Granit Xhaka will never please everyone, but Arsenal are lucky to have him and, as fans, he is giving us the only thing we can ask for.

I often scour the internet, looking for reasons to defend Granit Xhaka and his stay at Arsenal. Alas, I have found a reason right here on Pain in the Arsenal, and I was called into action. The claim in this other piece was that Xhaka has not developed as a player and has, in fact, had a worse second season than his first.

To which my head starts spinning. I don’t see how this claim can possibly be made. But let’s address it in two steps, firstly starting with his second season compared to his first.

When Xhaka first arrived, and after people realized he wasn’t Patrick Vieira, there were two main problems with him – he couldn’t keep possession of the ball and he was a yellow/red card waiting to happen. Those are two legitimate criticisms and two problems that need to be fixed.

The card problem was already disappearing into the second half of last year. He faced too many suspensions for card accumulation last year, and most of the time, they were brought on by stupid, rash, impulse challenges that didn’t need to happen.

He has not faced a single suspension this year and his capacity to lash out in response to a mistake has disappeared.

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And speaking of making mistakes, that was his other big problem. He didn’t seem to understand the speed of the Premier League and was caught in possession, giving the ball away in precarious situations.

You want to try to tell me that hasn’t improved? Even last year, he was dispossessed a mere 0.7 times per match, but for good measure, he cut that down this year to 0.5. He has been a fortress with the ball, making it literally impossible to get his pocket picked, unlike many of our other midfielders.

And yes, Xhaka had his problems still. He was a bit wayward in his passing from time to time – although to that point, at least he was always trying to push play forward – and he got caught napping on the defense.

But to that second point, so has every other Arsenal player. And while that doesn’t excuse him, he has, in fact, turned on the defensive juice in recent months, defending deeper on the pitch and making himself an additional centerback when the situation calls for it.

In short, Xhaka is improving as a player. He isn’t perfect. He isn’t Patrick Vieira, but he is improving, and anyone who can’t see that is blinded by one of two things – the fact that Xhaka isn’t the type of midfielder that they want, or a continued belief that he is making the same mistakes as last year.

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Guess what? He isn’t. So get over it and accept that Xhaka is the kind of midfielder you can build an entire set-up around. Otherwise you’re going to end up looking pretty silly when he is the centerpiece of a title-winning team two years down the road. Was that too much? Possibly. But for as much as people undersell him, I feel compelled to oversell him.

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