Arsenal: Granit Xhaka and his eternal flaw of being human

Arsenal’s maligned midfielder Granit Xhaka has fallen under fire again for one mistake made in a fairly successful individual World Cup. Damn him for being human!

Granit Xhaka has always had the chips stacked against him when it comes to finding individual success at Arsenal. The small things he does right are forgotten as soon as he does a single thing wrong, at which point he has to start all over again.

That is how it works with that undesirable kind of “fan” who wants the razzle and the dazzle, but doesn’t seem to understand that there is so much more that goes on underneath that has to go right first.

Xhaka is what goes on underneath. He doesn’t play a sexy kind of game. He doesn’t bicycle kick or lay crunching tackles. Occasionally he’ll play a sensational pass or fire off a cracker of a goal, but overall, he’s there to set the tempo, protect possession and not give the ball away.

In that sense, he is a remarkably adept midfielder for doing what is expected of him. He does those crucial, non-sexy parts of the game incredibly well. So well, in fact, that I wouldn’t want anyone else to do them, because they wouldn’t do it as well.

But as is the case with any human being in any walk of life, there are going to be slips. Xhaka had one of those slips for Switzerland in their 1-0 loss to Sweden. He has since been cast into a pit of wolves to be ruthlessly torn apart.

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Just like it has always been at Arsenal, and just how it will always be so long as he is the kind of player that he is – which will be always.

It’s amazing to me that after so many improvements over the course of last season, that someone can still come out and say that Xhaka is a fake. It is a blatantly ignorant claim that can’t be backed up and shows a willful lack of education to better understand a player, rather than just pointing the finger and screeching like a drunk banshee.

Xhaka is human, in the same sense that you and I are human (assuming Pain in the Arsenal hasn’t reached an intergalactic audience yet). He is going to mess up. Everybody messes up. And I’m probably messing up myself in trying to get people to understand this whole thing, but I’ll try anyway.

If you can’t give him credit for what he does right – and honestly give him credit, not something like ‘he passes sideways well’ which is another blatantly ignorant statement – then discrediting him for what he does wrong makes you look rather dull. That’s the truth of the matter.

Next: Arsenal's End Of Season Player Rankings

Don’t be a dullard. Give credit where it’s due.

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