Arsenal: Those weren’t just “Frankfurt players” Granit Xhaka hugged

Cue the outrage. Granit Xhaka had the audacity to shake hands and chum with Frankfurt players after the Arsenal loss. They weren’t just “players.”

You just knew it was going to be something. Maybe the color of his socks, maybe the comb of his hair, but there was going to be something that Arsenal fans were going to find to justify more awful treatment of Granit Xhaka. And they found it.

After all 12 fans at the Emirates gave Xhaka a decently warm welcome when he was announced for the first time since Crystal Palace, that warmness turned to social media ire when Granit Xhaka had the audacity to smile and laugh and hug a couple Eintracht Frankfurt players after.

First off, let’s get this out of the way. The player he hugged? Gelson Fernandes, Xhaka’s international teammate. The other? David Abraham, his former, two-year teammate and midfield partner at FC Basel.

These weren’t just “Frankfurt” players. This wasn’t Granit Xhaka being chummy for the sake of not caring. This was him seeing friends and former teammates that, in David Abraham’s case, we don’t know when the last time is that he saw him.

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Also, when did it become a crime to show sportsmanship? I see English players getting chummy all the time after matches, no matter the result, and who ever raises a stink? Not a damn soul. But Xhaka does it and whoa, what a crime. What a crime.

Also, and maybe this is a moot is a moot point, but this is a game that you, the fans, called meaningless. But all of a sudden it’s a vital fixture because Xhaka had the audacity to show some sportsmanship? Now, granted, if these were just random’s that Xhaka is up there chatting with because he doesn’t care, sure, be mad, all fixtures matter.

But again, to give this encounter no context is to feed the ridiculous outrage that leads to the hatred that Xhaka has had to suffer from for years.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Fans see a smile from a player after a match and they immediately wonder why the players shouldn’t be miserable sods just like some of the fans. They don’t take anything in context. They just see what they want to see and fly into a rage.

That’s why Xhaka’s in this position at all. Because they see what they want to see. Granit Xhaka did nothing wrong. End of story.