Arsenal: Guess what Granit Xhaka is learning to do now?

Granit Xhaka didn’t have his best Arsenal outing against Everton, but he is learning a new skill, apparently, at it’s a rather attractive thing.

Arsenal fans (and writers) were displeased with Granit Xhaka because, as we all know by now, a single slip-up makes all of the good things disappear and only the bad remain. The bad as in, about ten minutes of bad play.

Xhaka was caught in possession once against Everton and it was a nasty situation, then he passed it away two more times in precarious situations as well. It was ugly. He had no outlets and looked to be in desperation mode.

And then, for the next 75-80 minutes, he had the nerve to go and get better. Way better. For those who were too busy being outraged to notice, his passing was cracking open the Everton lines like he is expected to do, he settled into the pace of the game, and he was potent and effective.

But it wasn’t just his passing that helped him cope with the pressure Everton were putting on the Gunners. When he started to recognize that it wasn’t always in his best interests to desperately fish for an outlet, he started doing something that he by no rights should be doing.

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He would dribble the ball up field.

I know, right? The nerve of this guy, trying new things in an effort to cope with the pressure. How dare he.

However, despite his established lack of pace, he did a fine job pushing the ball up field and completed just as many dribbles as Mesut Ozil, the two of whom were tied for second on the team with a massive one completed dribble.

The point is though, yet again, Xhaka’s astuteness lead to development. This wasn’t his best match, I’ll grant him that. But there is a reason why he stayed on for the full 90 and avoided the Unai Emery hook. It’s because he took his ineffectiveness and turned it around. The passing wasn’t there as much, so he tried to take control of proceedings himself. And, sorry to all the haters out there, but it worked. It worked really well.

I consider myself blessed that I’m not blinded by the baseless bias against Xhaka, because when you see how intelligent of a footballer he is, it’s truly an inspiring thing. No, he can’t defend for crap. Yes, he is slow. But he is constantly improving and you can’t do much better than that.