Arsenal vs Burnley: Like it or not, Granit Xhaka was sorely missed

Arsenal were faster than ever against Burnley, but more frantic, and it was apparent that Granit Xhaka’s absence was a bothersome one.

You may have noticed a difference between the Arsenal win at Newcastle and the win at Burnley. And I’m not talking about Dani Ceballos (though I will be for the next week, at least). I’m talking about Granit Xhaka.

We should be happy with the result, of course. Three points in three points. But despite the positive attacking play we saw against Burnley, I never felt truly comfortable, even until the last minute. And one of the big reasons for that is because the match felt so unnecessarily frantic.

While Ceballos was tremendous, a midfield trio of Ceballos, Matteo Guendouzi and Joe Willock was keenly lacking in the big one—control. And I know I harp about control a lot, but we saw why here. We saw a team that didn’t know how to slow down and control possession when they had the lead.

I love Guendouzi, and I think the world of him, but he still lacks control. That’s not a knock on him, he’s young and enthusiastic, but if we’re going to harp on Xhaka for every little misstep, then it needs to be said that Guendouzi takes unnecessary risks too.

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Ceballos was tremendous, but he too lacks that capacity to slow down and try to take the chaos out of the match.

And while Willock is a calming presence, he isn’t a big enough presence yet to impact a game as much as Xhaka does.

Whether you like it or not, the best midfield pairing right now is going to be Ceballos and Xhaka. You need that energy, which Ceballos provides, but you also need the guy who can protect the ball, take the venom out of the opposition, and protect that defense. And by protect, I mean deny the opposition the chance to take the ball forward, which Xhaka does by doing one simple thing—holding onto the ball. That’s all.

Plus, in case you didn’t notice, Xhaka’s ability to fling the ball around the pitch and drop it on a dime was missing. Willock tried, but the precision is lacking, and Ceballos did decent enough, but it’s another underrated Xhaka specialty.

Celebrate the win, but know that we can get even better when we bring Xhaka back into the mix, which we hopefully will against Liverpool.