Arsène Wenger admits advising Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka not to tackle
theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/26/arsene-w...
theguardian.comPosted Aug 28, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC
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theguardian.comIn hindsight, Roma's offer was too good to pass. Sigh.
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You've got to remember that the people who made the decision thought it was a good idea to sign Willian.
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You should also admit that the majority of gunner fans were cringily roleplaying as master negotiator and saying pay up or jog on. After years of Xhaka not being good enough, and "get rid", to that, almost overnight. I'm a Roma fan first and foremost so I was stoked it didn't go through, but it did open my eyes to what a pack of tuggers this fanbase really is...
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I wouldn't at all say majority, maybe half the sub were for keeping him if we didn't get 20M+ but the other half were just fine selling him for chewed up bubble gum and some string
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True, I only subbed like yesterday, I was more speaking to fans on r/soccer. Oddly enough I'm actually more engaged in banter/rebuild years...
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It was always gonna be a dumb fuckin move to reject any kind of cash for Xhaka. Now we'll have to pay him to fuck off like the rest of the shitty players we have acquired in the past.
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And you just know he's going to be paid to fuck off.
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Indisciplined… the supposed leader needed for our youngsters. In reality he’s just a slow technically impaired hot head who’s arrogance precedes him whenever he arrives
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Gotta be the worst signing since I started following the team? (2010)
You can laugh about people like Park, Santos, and Perez. They didn't really play enough to do any long-term damage though, and most of them weren't very expensive at all.
This Xhaka thing is a nightmare because he was expensive, is a constant liability, and yet somehow never gets binned. Man should've been sent packing to Germany or Italy after 1-2 seasons tops.
The fact that he got an EXTENSION is comically bad.
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Spot on
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Lol, the most perfect summary of Xhaka on this sub.
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We kept this guy because Roma offered 3 million less than our valuation... This is why you need to be ruthless.
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Artetas non-negotiables lol
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This time it’s not on Arteta. Last year it was.
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People keep saying that not budging vs these clubs that make these low propositions for our players is sending a message to other clubs that we will no longer sell players for the cheap.
But this guy isn't fucking worth 20m and EVERYONE can see that.
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Wouldn't it be considered ruthless to turn down an offer that doesn't meet a player's valuation, even if the player really wants to go?
I don't think "ruthless" is the word you're looking for.
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It is. Ruthless in the sense that if we think someone's not good enough and we don't need him, we get him out. You're either good enough or you're done here. Everyone deserves a second chance, but not a third, fourth, fifth chance.
Wearing this kit should be a privilege. We can't sully our reputation with the likes of Xhaka.
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The problem is that every manager: Wenger, Emery, Arteta, thinks Xhaka is good enough. He's probably the most used player by all 3 managers.
And, unlike Man City, Arsenal doesn't have infinite money. The club can't afford to just keep paying players to go away.
Bad signings under Wenger, Emery and Arteta that Arsenal can't unload have limited the other business the club could do. If you could somehow convince PSG to bid £50m for Kolasinac it would be easy to rebuild Arsenal.
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2017 yet here we are.. Jesus
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"I SAY PLEASEE, GRANIT. NO TACKLE. BUT HE TACKLE"
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when xhaka was a boy, he showed up to school one day to find his teacher was absent. he promptly took responsibility, got in front of the class and did role call. what a leader. he then preceded to teach the class how to jack off a donkey with peyronie’s disease because that’s all he’s good for
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Please, some respect...
.. for donkeys with Peyronie's disease
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Lmao wtf
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Xhaka’s little army are noticeably absent today…. Well actually they’re not, I can see their comments in some threads but they’re fully going out of their way to avoid any Xhaka discussions.
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Yes, social media sucks. Doesn't it? No room for nuanced opinions. Go against the hivemind and you get massively downvoted.
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"This article is more than 4 years old"
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I'd advise using crayons to draw it for the muppet but he would probably eat the crayons
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how the fuck is he still at this club? HOW? SOMEONE EXPLAIN IT I BEG
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He needs his obligatory red card every season then he will return like a beast!
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An out of control beast
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It seems like every single arsenal player has been advised not to tackle
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Unfortunately there is no laughing emojis for likes on Reddit?
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Our very own Scholes /S
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It didn't work as whenever Xhaka sees the red light, he is gonna go for it, regardless of instructions. Happened under Wenger, Emery, Arteta, all the same.
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Loving those extra years of Xhaka
Grateful Wenger turned down signing Kante for Xhaka
This story is always told without context.
Kante was always the priority during that window. Arsenal simply balked at the agents fees involved and went with their second option.
It wasn't like anyone thought Xhaka was the better player.
Plus we were able to go out and recruit the statistical equivalent of Kante for cheap anyway, Lucas Torreira.
Statistical equivalent! 🤣lmao
Torreira was never given a run as DM. You can't convince me he was worse than Xhaka in that position yet he was moved forward to where his strengths didn't lie.
Why the fuck was Xhaka the backup to Kante though? They're not even close to the same type of player.
Wenger didn’t even know what type of player Xhaka was. These quotes are a few months apart.
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That's literally a lie.
Tons of very stupid people -- lead by Gunnerblog, but certainly not exclusively -- rejoiced in signing [Trigger Warning] 'over' Kante, and argued vehemently that [Trigger Warning] was a better choice because of 'muh housekeys' usw.
edit: Further evidence of lunacy:
https://www.joe.co.uk/sport/arsenal-fans-mock-chelsea-for-signing-kante-when-xhaka-is-10x-the-player-73647
Including these absolute gems:
"[Trigger Warning] is 10x the player Kante is. This is not an opinion, this is a fact of football"
"Saying Kante is better than [Trigger Warning] is like saying Drinkwater is better than Alonso. Utterly ridiculous."
Gunnerblog is a mouthpiece of ARSENAL
Oh well, then I should have said anyone in their right mind.
I believe Xhaka was a name spat out by statDNA once we were in a bind.
This is the problem though. It's not like anyone can bemoan the club for sticking to their guns, but it's always the wrong decision with us. Cheeky bids with +£1 or refusing to pay over the odds for a top target and settling for second best (in this case turned out he wasn't even second).
Yeah, this is exactly right. When it comes to making the right decision on so many critical issues, we repeatedly get it wrong.
I remember it as Kante had a clause at LCFC that he couldn't be bought by a team playing in the Champions League. The was the year Chelsea finished 7th and they activated his £35 mil. clause
I've never heard that one before. Any source?
Then they shouldnt of balked then over some damn agent fees, thats on him.
If he's better then the marginal agent fees are nominal in comparison
Yeah, and biting the bullet with the agents fees would have been the difference between the millions we're losing out on now
No one thought he was as shit as he is not. I remember him coming on vs our win vs Chelsea and he bossed it. How naive
We walked away from Kanté because of agents fees yet we will happily sign Willian and Cedric because of who their agent is. That is not a valid excuse IMO every top player has shady agents nowadays, we should have just paid the man and got Kanté instead of persisting with the failure that is Xhaka.
Wenger was notorious for hating agents and the excessive fees that came with them.
It really brings the whole recruiting process into the question: how a player of a completely different profile can be #2 to Kante. I would somewhat understand if the #2 option was someone like Gueue or Torreira, but Xhaka is a completely different player to Kante.
Yes, not just that, but Xhaka is probably the most un-Wenger player I've ever seen.
I simply will never believe that Wenger had much say in recruiting him because he's the complete opposite of the sort of midfielders that Wenger tended to like.
Doesn't mean he's a bad player, just means he's a bad player for the Arsenal that we know and love.
I think he's stayed primarily because both Emery and Arteta were trying to move away from Wengers style in which case a guy like Xhaka can actually be useful but the transformation is proving more difficult than they imagined for whatever reason.
We make so many mistakes who has the energy to go back that far. Let's focus on the more recent ones like, after 5 years seeing him not be good enough, instead of selling him (or just keeping him around as a squad player for another year) we give him the keys to the club and an improved extension.
I bet in some parallel universe Santi never got injured and played with Kante
And we end up winning the league in 2016.
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You do realize he would've been worth it?
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It's very easy to say that now
Why do people keep on spurting out this shite?
For Kante we were outbid by Chelski
You do realize that we would potentially have ruined Kante as much as we have ruined most other recruited players.
Wenger?