From John B : Xhaka / Wenger the humanitarian
Hi Myles,
For various reasons I’ve been too busy to read ANR for the past few weeks but having caught up now wanted to raise two points.
Firstly, Granit Xhaka is not and never will be a box-to-box midfielder so please don’t expect him to turn into Bryan Robson next season.
Once it became clear we would sign him, I ‘scouted’ Xhaka a couple of times last year and concluded that he was, in the most positive way possible, Gareth Barry with knobs on.
He is a low-motor midfielder with not a huge level of interest in defending but who clearly LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, passing above all other aspects of the game. He’s pretty cynical and will pick up plenty of bookings, not for mistimed but heavy tackles but for dirty play, pure and simple.
Secondly, following all the recent Wenger 20-year anniversary reflections, I wanted to float the theory that the reason that not all Arsenal supporters adore Wenger is that he puts his love of football above his love of Arsenal.
At heart he is a generous humanitarian who is devoted to make the game and the people who play it better, whereas a huge number of supporters (including me) put Arsenal ahead of everything.
As a result, he struggles to appear that empathetic with Arsenal supporters (as opposed to football supporters) and will always appear at least a bit aloof.
I still remember a scene from the Arsenal 1990/91 end of season video where George Graham was talking to the squad after they had been docked points following the scrap at Old Trafford. He said he would be able to get the Arsenal crowd to get behind them ‘don’t you worry about that’.
He knew he had us in the palm of his hand because he understood us, what Arsenal means and our odd idiosyncrasies.
Quite aside from the fact they operate in such different ways, Wenger would never be able to do something similar because his passion for football overwhelms everything in his life, even Arsenal.
Keep up the brilliant work.
Myles says:
Xhaka is enjoying his new life and living in a £19,000-a-month house in Elstree.
Tend to agree on AW’s preoccupations. A generous humanitarian? If you say so.
He loves an aesthetically pleasing pass-and-move game that looks good from his low angle near the pitch. He’s rarely seen an Arsenal match from the stand and will never understand a big stadium’s need speed and spectacle from super-gladiators like Shevchenko or Drogba.
He is entirely fascinated by football, even after all these years. He relishes being in charge of a big train set, like a movie director.
Wenger once told Philippe Auclair :“I find it so interesting that I would manage a team without a crowd.“