Arsenal: Predicting David Ornstein’s four sale candidates

Granit Xhaka

There might not be a player in the Premier League who has endured a more turbulent season than Granit Xhaka. He started the year as the ‘Voice of the Dressing Room’. He was eventually made club captain. Then the told the fans to ‘f*ck off’ after one of the worst runs of performances a midfielder has ever produced at the Emirates and was stripped of the armband.

Then he told the club he wanted to leave, his agent publicly admitting that he had an offer on the table to return to the Bundesliga. And finally, Arteta arrived, trusted Xhaka with a key role in his team, and has since resurrected his north London career, so much so that he has been widely praised for his performances under the new head coach.

Yet, despite the uptick in his recent outings, there is a crux to the Xhaka problem: he is limited. Arteta knows this, which is why he has protected him in a clever wonky central midfield role, and he also understands the impact it has on the rest of the team. Like Mustafi, Xhaka may be playing well, but he is not a long-term solution.

With Ornstein reporting that Arsenal will listen to offers for ‘a couple of central midfielders’, you have to believe that Xhaka is the other man on the block, for the right price.