Granit Xhaka

[Losmeister]

Xhaka was totally irrelevant

I thoughht thats what Xhaka means???

[StLGooner]

I just feel he's being scapegoated. Ramsey, for example, did a lot less!

Ramsey was out of position and yet still spearheaded our press quite well.

Xhaka failed at the very things he's supposed to be good at

+1

Funny thing is Ramsey was one of our better players till he was subbed. He was trying to stem the flow and make sh8t happen while Xhaka was totally irrelevant.

The one great thing I will give Ramsey is his commitment to the cause. He's usually always lively, always pressing, always running his head off. He'd die for the team if you let him.

[Arsenal Tone]

I thought, considering he was playing in his preferred position (CAM), Rambo had a poor game.

[StLGooner]

I thought, considering he was playing in his preferred position (CAM), Rambo had a poor game.

Attacking wise yes, he didn't do enough. Off the ball he was his usual self.

[Santi]

How do you know that's he preferred position? For me he doesn't have a single trait of a proper CAM/#10.


His late runs are that of a B2B midfielder which is what he once was before his ego inflated to the size of a hot air balloon.

[Arsenal Tone]

Actually, he sees himself as playing the cazorla role:

https://www.arsenalreport.com/posts/aar ... d-position

[KG3]

That's disrespectful to Cesc. If Xhaka had half the touch and technical ability as Cesc we'd be ok.

[Santi]

Actually, he sees himself as playing the cazorla role:

https://www.arsenalreport.com/posts/aar ... d-position

Which is where he should be and then doing the Lampard style late entry to the box. If he could get over himself then he'd be fine.

Plus Cazorla had a brain 100x quicker. Ramsey is either a player who acts on instinct (see his great goal last season) or takes too long to think, there's no in between and the instinct is usually in the box rather than anywhere else.

Not many can replicate Cazorla's footballing brain, Ramsey has never been close. They have completely different styles but could fill a similar role, he doesn't need to be fancy.

[StLGooner]

Actually, he sees himself as playing the cazorla role:

https://www.arsenalreport.com/posts/aar ... d-position

Which is where he should be and then doing the Lampard style late entry to the box. If he could get over himself then he'd be fine.

Plus Cazorla had a brain 100x quicker. Ramsey is either a player who acts on instinct (see his great goal last season) or takes too long to think, there's no in between and the instinct is usually in the box rather than anywhere else.

Not many can replicate Cazorla's footballing brain but Ramsey has never been close, completely different styles but could fill a similar role, he doesn't need to be fancy.

Bingo, said this the other day about Ramsey. He does phenomenal things with no space in the box, but in midfield he shits himself.

[theHotHead]

How do you know that's he preferred position? For me he doesn't have a single trait of a proper CAM/#10.


His late runs are that of a B2B midfielder which is what he once was before his ego inflated to the size of a hot air balloon.

Exactly this, box to box midfielder.

[DiamondGooner]

Actually, he sees himself as playing the cazorla role:

https://www.arsenalreport.com/posts/aar ... d-position

[LegendaryKeown]

Anyone ever remember a worse compilation for someone's game?

[Byron Gomez]

Awful, awful player. can't believe some of the Shiite that play for us these days ffs.

[Angelito]

Came across this on Reddit

XGBuildup looks at the expected goals of every possession in which a particular player is involved but doesn’t either take a shot or play a key pass (a pass that leads to a shot). In other words, it’s an attempt to measure how players contribute to attacking moves when they’re doing the hard work of moving the ball forward and not the glamorous shooting or assisting. Xhaka led Arsenal with a measure of 0.63 xGBuildup per 90 minutes last season.

The problem is, Xhaka is also a terrible defender. His range is limited and his defensive anticipation is next to nonexistent. Last season, as Arsenal tried (poorly) to press opponents, he was over-exposed and expected to patrol way more territory than he was equipped to handle. Still, it’s not surprising that Xhaka made exactly zero interceptions and only one successful tackle against Chelsea in the first half of an attacking slugfest on Saturday.

Xhaka was bad defensively, so it’s understandable that Emery would choose to replace him with Lucas Torreira at halftime. And in some ways, Arsenal did become more difficult to break down. Rather than trying to step in front of Chelsea and intercept the ball, Arsenal stood off, kept their shape, and defended in their own half. After having eight interceptions in the first half, they only had four in the second, but they blocked five shots, up from one, cleared the ball a remarkable 15 times, up from eight in the first half, and successfully completed 10 of 15 tackles, up from 4 of 8 in the first half.

But the story on offense was also that of a reversal. Without Xhaka, Arsenal simply couldn’t turn its defensiveness into attacking chances. Though they were heavily out-possessed in the first half, Arsenal was actually quite even in the attacking third, completing 43 passes to Chelsea’s 44. But in the second half, Chelsea completed 108 attacking-third passes while Arsenal completed only 32 of their own. Consequently, despite being a more disciplined defensive team, Arsenal were outshot a whopping 15 to three in the second half.

https://theathletic.com/481663/2018/08/ ... thout-him/

Confirms the obvious. He's not good enough to play in a midfield two, or a three. But his playmaking abilities are vastly underrated. Precisely why, I wanted a complete CM in the summer. We don't have a driving force in the middle, or a well-rounded DLP.

If we want Xhaka in the middle, we have play him alongside Guen and Torreira. Xhaka - Ramsey - Torrira against "lesser" sides would be fine.

It's concerning that we have two so called midfield players who cannot hold the CM position on their own.

Guezdouzi - Torreira - Ozil or Guendouzi - Torreira - Xhaka are our best options.

[Jedi]

I don't buy that, there's too many factors to the attacking stats in the 2nd half to attribute half of it or even less to Xhaka coming off. Kovacic and Hazard were fantastic after they came on as subs and thats why we lost.