Arsenal Vs Liverpool: The death knell of Granit Xhaka

Granit Xhaka was at his absolute worst in Arsenal’s defeat to Liverpool. This was — or at least should be — the death knell of the lacklustre midfielder who is no longer deserving of a starting role.

Granit Xhaka is in the Arsenal team to dictate play from deep. He is an excellent passer, he has good vision and technique, and he has the ability to control matches and orchestrate attacks from a deep-lying central midfield position.

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He has many shortcomings, from his immobility to his lack of defensive awareness, but Arsene Wenger and now Unai Emery are willing to accept these vulnerabilities because of the controlling impact that he provides. In their opinion, his passing makes his weaknesses palatable.

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However, against Liverpool on Saturday evening, which was a consummate 3-1 victory for the Merseysiders, Xhaka’s passing let him down, which only served to accentuate all of his other weaknesses.

Arsenal wanted to play a counter-attacking style. Emery left Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Nicolas Pepe up-front, high onto the Liverpool centre-halves. He wanted his team to play directly, moving from front to back quickly, looking to exploit the space in front of Pepe and Aubameyang with Liverpool’s full-backs pushing high up the pitch.

That requires very purposeful distribution from deep, the ball pushed up-field quickly and accurately, looking to the feet of the attacking pair, who can then drive at Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip, who were relatively unprotected against the counter-attack. Xhaka, then, should be playing forward, direct passes into his attacking teammates.

Above is a statistical representation of Xhaka’s performance in the first hour. Look how many passes are either backwards or sideways. Specifically, there are nine passes that go back into the most defensive 18 yards of the pitch, either into the penalty area or right into the corner. That is extremely troubling against any team, it is utterly criminal against Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Liverpool want to press you high up the pitch. They want to suffocate your time and space on the ball, force you to make errors, and cause turnovers in the attacking third, such that they can attack a defence that is not organised after the transition. It is a lethal strategy, one that has proven extremely effective throughout Klopp’s time there. Avoiding it is one of the keys to beating them.

So Xhaka playing plenty of his passes back into the penalty area and the defensive third is precisely what you do not want to do. It invites Liverpool to push 10 yards further up the pitch, compact the space, and make it substantially tougher for Arsenal to play through them. Eventually, the ball is kicked aimlessly long under pressure or a poor pass is made and Liverpool are immediately on the attack — this is what caused Dani Ceballos teeing up Sadio Mane.

When this is the case, then, it begs the question, what does Granit Xhaka actually offer the team? If he cannot conduct play from deep, does not control matches with his excellent passing range, and fails to create and instigate attacks, what is the point of having him in the team?

This was the death knell for Xhaka. Let’s just hope that Unai Emery was listening to it ring.