On a night of dreadful officiating by Martin Atkinson, the one big surprise – aside from Arsenal winning a game of association football (LOL!) – was that Granit Xhaka didn’t get booked.
Even better than that was the majestic figure the Swiss cut in the centre of the park as he sprayed delicious passes to the flanks, played decisively through the lines and, for the most part, stayed on his feet. What a time to be alive…as the kids might say.
Speaking after the 3-0 win over West Ham United, the 24-year-old midfielder highlighted the importance of being patient in the face of Slaven Bilic’s long-ball tactics.
“We wanted to score the goal as early as possible,” Xhaka told Arsenal Player. “We knew West Ham would play with lots of long balls.
“In the second half we carried on playing our football, scored our goals and showed patience. I think that was decisive today.
“Patience was really important. Against a team that plays deep, that plays with lots of long balls, you have to be patient. Today we managed to do that and then added three nice goals to win the game.
“I think we played a good game today. We created chances in the first half, where we, unfortunately, didn’t score. But the 3-0 win is really satisfactory. We had to win and wanted to win in front of our fans, and that’s what we did.
“Against Manchester City, we played a good game where we weren’t rewarded. Again today, we played really well. It’s four points from two games, so let’s keep going.”
More of the same please Granit.
That settles it. When Granit doesn’t get booked or give away a penalty we are almost certain to win the game!
Hard as Granit.
Elneny better start against Palace. Leave Coquelin on the bench for a while.Won’t do him any harm.
lets make it 7 from 3
#COYG!!!
I thought he had his best game for Arsenal last night. For the first time, I really saw the value of him as a player – he moved the ball around beautifully. I guess it all comes down to who he is paired with. More Xhak-neny please.
His long range passing was superb last night no doubt.
Xavi Alonso’s heir apparent and no wonder Bayern are sniffing about.
His long range passing has always been his highlight. The problem is defensively he doesnt quite cut it, and the club have tried to utilise him in a defensive role at times.
If he had a proper def midfielder alongside him, he would do well. He is definitely a Cazorla replacement/successor. Sits deep and control flow.
He’s more of a quarterback than cazorla is. Cazorla can skip past a challenge or two and create space by doing just that. Xhaka is more static in the deep midfield. He’s not a tackler either so Arsene tried to use coquelin in Kante fashion to win the ball higher up the field, and not have both coquelin and xhaka sitting back. Now, El-neny isn’t a great tackler himself but he’s a great presser and has the stamina to be in an attacker’s comfort zone all game long. This combo will be undone by the very best midfields with dribblers… Read more »
I personally saw it from the first game played. Am I the only one who can see him as a future captain ?
The last time we won seriously we had patrick, who picked up the occassional red card, as captain. I say grinite is on the right track!
From the day we signed him I assumed he would be the captain within two years. He’s a natural leader but needs time to adjust.
He’s had a lot of good games, don’t just pick the most recent one and forget the rest. If you didn’t see his value before, then i’d say you aren’t that good at watching football.
Here are the facts: Premier League games Only. Central Defensive Partnerships so far after 29 games Started and played more than 45 min. Individuals P W D L Xhaka 20 12 4 4 Coquelin 18 7 5 6 Elnany 7 4 2 1 Carzola 6 6 0 0 OX 5 1 1 3 Ramsey 2 2 0 0 Partnerships P W D L Xhaka/Coquelin 9 3 3 3 Xhaka/Elnany 3 3 0 0 Xhaka/Carzola 4 4 0 0 Xhaka/Ramsey 2 2 0 0 Xhaka/OX 2 0 1 1 Coquelin/Elnany 4 1 2 1 Coquelin/OX 3 1 0 2 Coquelin/Carzola 2… Read more »
Who’s Carzola? And Elnany?
El nanny works quid pro quo and Carzola is the new secondhand auto-loan business down the street.
Arsenal employees statisticians to do what you describe, and they have the videos to match their numbers too, and training ground numbers, etc.–what on earth do you think that they don’t know about match history…
Elnany McPhee
Please don’t cut and paste the same thing into multiple articles. And please learn how to spell the players’ names.
What’s wrong with cutting and pasting into multiple articles? He posted some great statistics and he wants everybody to see them. I didn’t see them in another article, so thankfully he posted them here.
I don’t understand people sometimes…..
My key take-away from this (as well as from watching football matches) is Coquelin should not be playing regularly. And I love the guy, I think off the pitch he’s one of the best dudes. He just doesn’t fit at Arsenal.
Well, Coquelin was very important for a while. Then he was encouraged to become more offensive minded, for which he was never really suited, and now his defensive effectiveness has dropped, probably for physical reasons. He puts in a shift, but you’re right, it’s not working anymore.
Sweet nutmeg in the first half. You could see the westham player cringe. Lol
I’d like to see that again. The broadcast in my country never replayed it.
Mark Noble. Very good player to do that to as well. Diaby-esque with that nutmeg.
Next season people wil see just how good Xhaka really is. I hope we sign Naby Keita or Paredes to play alongside him. He’s done ok considering he’s playing in a setup as disorganized as ours. Play him in the right setup and you’ll see just how good he is.
Have you alerted Arsene to this fact? ?
I love when people suggest we sign players nobody has heard of.
And I don’t care if a bunch of people here have heard of those two guys. I mean the vast majority of reasonable football fans. I hope we never sign either. Thanks.
Yeah bet you said the same thing about Kante when Leicester signed him? Heck you probably said the same about Xhaka when he was at Basel.
Oh and Naby Keita has been one of the best players in the Bundesliga. So saying you haven’t heard of him is ridiculous.
So, why has it taken this long for the light bulb moment?
Because Elneny was around as an outlet to receive the ball unlike Coq. So it was difficult for west ham to pick out a player to press.
There is something to this. I felt against City we were too eager to ‘put things right’ and rushed forward to try and score the second but were then punished. West Ham were tricky opponents. They were at us for spells first half. But I think we up the ante second half, their legs tired and we got joy from in particular their right flank which Ozil and Alexis overloaded (Byram) Also Granit was effective switching play quickly from flank to flank from deep allowing us to build/transition quicker. Still think we take too many touches at times but that’s… Read more »
Look, there’s a reason the Hammers lost the four games previous to ours. They are in very poor form, and that’s a big part of the reason we looked like world beaters against them. Now, had Martin Atkinson done his job, and Welbeck, Bellerin, and Walcott finished their chances, the scoreline could have glittered more; I’m not saying we didn’t play well. But look at the City game as a more accurate barometer. We managed a draw in a game at home in which we were outplayed by a small but noticeable margin by a team we need to catch… Read more »
I don’t think anybody has really mentioned this but I feel the reason we played so well was we nullified their attacking potential by ensuring Carrolls aerial threat was nullified by the defensive line pushing up on set pieces, in addition to blocking crosses. What a difference defensive efficiency makes.
Another point… we are unbeaten in April!
Nice nutmeg.;)
Xhaka took a foul from Kouyate in the second half, and you could see Xhaka look back on Kouyate with malice, like, “you’re lucky I have been told to stay on my feet because otherwise, I would murder you.” But then a light bulb went off and he stopped.
Beast
Looking ahead to the fixture list with a conservative estimation of results – (away) Palace – 5 wins on the trot for them. Will be difficult in their backyard. No away game in EPL is easy. A draw should be an acceptable result. DRAW – 1 Pt. (away) Middlesborough – As easy as an away game in EPL will get. WIN – 3 Pts. (home) Sunderland – WIN 3 Pts. No excuses for anything but a win. (home) Leicester – Even though Leicester have improved greatly after Ranieri left, Arsenal at home should win. WIN – 3 Pts. (away) Tottenham… Read more »