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Arsenal: 3 underrated players from this season
By Krish Ajmani
It’s safe to say this Arsenal squad has underperformed this season. Every player has played their part in what has been a disastrous campaign for Mikel Arteta’s men. From goalkeeping howlers and defensive lapses in concentration to lack of chance creation or conversion, showings have been inconsistent and uninspiring.
Out of the Europa League at the hands of their former manager, crawling their way towards barely a top half Premier League finish and breaking numerous records this season for statistics more painful than the last, 2020/21 hasn’t been fun.
Wins away at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge ended years of pain, but it says a lot about the season when the news of Willian potentially departing in the summer was met with arguably more fanfare than a decade-long wait for three points in west London.
The Arsenal players worthy of praise this season can be counted on one hand. Numerous consistently poor individual performances or wildly inconsistent ones, the likes of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe can finish this campaign with their heads held high, but not many others.
3 underrated Arsenal players this season who deserve more credit than they have received in a miserable campaign
There are a few players, however, who received a (somewhat) undeserved amount of criticism this season, more so than their performances merited. The underrated few.
3. Granit Xhaka
Granit Xhaka is one of several players who has experienced something of a revival since Arteta took over. Under the latter part of Unai Emery’s time at the helm, Xhaka looked as if he was on the way out. Poor showings on the pitch combined with his being ostracized by fans culminated in the explosion against Crystal Palace.
Arteta, however, has squeezed the best from the Swiss midfielder since.
A more stable defense (without the error-prone Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac duo behind him), along with the mobile presence of Thomas Partey has allowed Xhaka to excel to a level previously unseen in north London. At least not for a while, anyway.
His skills on the ball have come to the fore and his ability to control games has been sorely missed, most noticeably against Villarreal. Arsenal have been an unstable mess without him.
While he may have hit his ceiling this season, he has performed consistently throughout. Arteta should certainly move him on should the opportunity arise but Xhaka will leave as a dedicated professional who gave his all for the club and one of the better performers of the season.