Arsenal: Granit Xhaka said a hell of a lot with very little

Granit Xhaka refused to say if he thought Arsenal as a club were progressing under Unai Emery, and that says a hell of a lot.

Emotions ran high after Arsenal‘s ridiculous loss to Chelsea. But apparently, in the Gunners’ dressing room, there was nothing but silence. Unai Emery said nothing, the players said nothing, and to should-be captain Granit Xhaka, that was fine.

“It is not about shouting. It is not about shouting everything if we lose,” he said. And he’s right, and he continued to be right, going on to say that they, as players, knew how they played. They knew what they had done.

But it was what Xhaka said earlier that stands out. When asked if Emery had taken the club forward, he responded, “I don’t know. I’m not the right person to give you an answer about this.”

That’s the thing though, Xhaka is the absolute right person to be asking about this. No one has played more minutes under Emery than him, and few played more minutes under Arsene Wenger during his last years than him.

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Not to mention he is a very observant, intelligent guy.

Xhaka would be the perfect person to ask this question, and the fact that he said he didn’t know, and that he wasn’t the right person to ask says a hell of a lot more than anything else he might have said. Because it means that the club hasn’t done what he might have been hoping.

Now, keep in mind that this was right after a horrible loss, so that has to be taken into account, but it’s also a damning statement that, even in that moment, Xhaka can’t say for certain if the club is moving forward.

Damning, yes, but I also like the stance that he is taking, and I think it speaks even higher to his viability as captain. We don’t need ‘yes’ men in the club. We don’t need players that are going to follow blindly. Obviously we don’t want them to be rabble-rousers, but Xhaka isn’t one of those. He is, however, the kind of guy who could ask the necessary questions of the players in the locker room.

If we needed any more reason not to sell him, this is one. He is willing to go against the grain and not just nod his head. And, the fact that he was so quick to speak to the fans… yeah. Captain material, this guy.