Est83 wrote:It's fair to say he should never have been used as a DM if he was never a DM in the first place (never knew that myself, although I only ever heard of him as a deep lying playmaker, but the sideways passing suggest that he wasn't even that), but you can't deny that he's been a complete liability at times.
We're not talking bad challenges, we're talking brain fart rash challenges, often at times where they simply weren't needed. Either in dangerous positions (giving away free kicks and scoring opportunities), or at times where it was unnecessary due to there not being much of a threat (again leading to a free shot at goal for the opposition), or simply a red card challenge leaving the rest of the team in a sh*t situation.
This is what he's become known for, and it's not undeserved.
He's also been slow in transition and hasn't showed 10% of the range of passing he's shown for Switzerland.
He fully deserves the distrust of fans, and it's easy to see why many want to see the back of him.
However, he's been shown to be someone that's incredibly important behind the scenes, has improved massively in his slightly altered new role, and has always given 110%... you can't knock his commitment. I'm not gonna not pay the man his dues.
But objectively, whether you love him or hate him, is he really good enough to be the first name on the team sheet when we're looking for CL qualification as a minimum?
Personally, I'm of the opinion that Wenger's recruitment of Xhaka in itself was pretty much like the steam whistle blowing on an old time locomotive to signal that it was approaching the station at the end of the line.
Not so much as to disrespectfully indicate that senility was now playing a role in his thinking, but more a case of him either failing or refusing to recognise that a tiredness had started to seep into his sharp and innovative cognitive abilities, or worse, him actually being oblivious to the fact.
Xhaka was brought in to cover the loss of Cazorla at the beginning of his injury nightmare, as whilst not in the same fashion as the Spaniard, he was also a DLP able to accurately transition the ball forward via his range of passing and similarly likely to contribute goals and goalscoring opportunities.
Unfortunately, Coquelin's form and effectiveness also fell off a cliff around that time and the seed was planted that due to the robust and physical nature of his game style coupled to his liking for a tackle, Xhaka could equally address that loss of an enforcer in midfield and effectively kill two birds with one stone.
As doesn't need to be dissected, Xhaka did not morph into the equivalent of Marcel Desailly in his pomp and in essence proved to be more akin to a band-aid being placed over a bullet hole in the chest.
Although an indictment of Le Professor's fading star, it cannot be legitimately argued that there was no method to the madness when considering his vision in having restructured the games of Henry, Lauren, Cazorla,Van Persie, Cole, Adebayor, not to mention turning the often turgid football we'd been served up before he arrived, into the swashbuckling beautiful game we're now addicted to, or the task that would have stumped Hercules himself in changing a perennial loser into a serial winner as he did with Sol Campbell.