Arsenal: Granit Xhaka becoming a safety deposit box

Arsenal waited awhile to make it look easy, but in the meantime, all of everything was kept safe in the middle of the pitch by Granit Xhaka.

My consistent defense of Granit Xhaka has officially ascended to a higher calling. I’m not sure what to call it yet, but rest assured that my claims about what this man is capable of at Arsenal will only get more obnoxious for those of you that disagree, and more realistic for those that can see the truth.

Against West Ham, Arsenal were far from spectacular throughout the first hour. Far from it. But one man was absolutely spectacular, and that man was – you guessed it – Granit Xhaka.

I have now reached a point in my viewership of this fantastic club that I trust no one with the ball more than the Swiss control tower. Not a soul. And it feels good. It feels good to know that when Xhaka gets the ball, he is like safety deposit box. There is no getting to what he has, so why even bother?

But he isn’t just a shut-up-shop midfielder. He isn’t a backwards/sideways passer like the worry was in the past. He isn’t a safety deposit box in that regard. No. Because once he gets the ball, and this has been the case for the past few months, you know what he is first looking to do. He is first looking to crack that opposing defense.

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The way he does that is known only to Mesut Ozil. He doesn’t often take the easy pass, or shoot it to the team mate closest to him. He sees past that first option and identifies the three or four tertiary options that most players don’t even consider because of the risk involved with such a pass.

But with how sharp and precise his passing is, those passes change everything. They force opposing ranks to reconfigure because the ball is now in a place they were not ready for it to be, and that leads to chances. Precious, precious chances.

Xhaka was showcasing his mastery of this skill against West Ham – bypassing the first line of options to pick out the threat in behind. It wasn’t even his normal, play-switching passes. It was just sharp, grounded balls that always found their intended destination.

Yet again, Xhaka did not get dispossessed a single time. He maintained a 92% pass completion, with 80% completion on long balls. He tied for the team lead in chances created and his only clear mistake was not finishing the fifth goal.

Next: Arsenal vs West Ham Player Ratings

Hold the phone, because Xhaka may be the deep-lying midfielder we’ve been looking for all along.

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