Talk amongst the Arsenal faithful has been dominated by the Granit Xhaka incident of late. The Swiss international has been stripped of the captaincy and left out of the squad that travelled to Northern Portugal for Wednesday’s UEFA Europa League tie but was Unai Emery right to strip the 27-year-old of the armband just a short-while after awarding it to him in the first place?
The midfielder has come in for lots of criticism in regards to his performances of late but unfortunately, there were those who crossed the line and directed vile abuse and vitriol towards the player and his family in a way that is totally unacceptable, as the player mentioned in his statement.
Much was made of Emery’s decision to allow the players to vote for their own captain and, whilst in theory it didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world, it has almost certainly put the Head Coach in a more difficult position when contemplating how best to punish Xhaka. The fact the former Borussia Monchengladbach man was elected proves his popularity amongst his peers and so failing to back him publicly or comment on whether he has a future at the club could create a divide between the players and their under-pressure coach.
From the very beginning of his tenure Emery has spoken of his desire to have five captains and so to remove Xhaka from the leadership group could be deemed somewhat extreme. If the Switzerland captain featured in Emery’s plans moving forward, you’d have to believe such drastic measures would have been avoided.
Given the time it took for Xhaka to release a statement, despite the club admitting they had advised the player to apologise sooner, it appears there may have been a series of disagreements and uncomfortable conversations taking place behind the scenes at the Emirates Stadium.
If indeed, the player has made it clear he wants to leave the club for pastures new in January, then Emery would be absolutely right to start planning for life without Xhaka and handing the invaluable game time to those more committed. However, in the event the former captain is able to move past this incident with the support of his team-mates and decides he wants to stay, Emery’s treatment of his player and failure to publicly back him could see the popular 27-year-old rallying the support of his peers.
The former Paris Saint-Germain boss’ popularity amongst the supporters is rapidly diminishing with each passing week, as calls for him to be sacked continue to grow. The seemingly disharmonious culture that has followed Emery to the club is not one the fans are willing to put up with, particularly when results have yet to improve significantly.
The decision to strip Xhaka of the captaincy may have gone down well with some but Emery has essentially undone a decision he entrusted his players to make just a month or so after they initially made it.