A couple of months in the past, Granit Xhaka was warming up on the Vitality Stadium earlier than Arsenal’s recreation towards Bournemouth when he seen that the travelling followers had been serenading Oleksandr Zinchenko, one of many membership’s summer time signings. (“Zin-chen-ko! At all times consider in your soul!”). Xhaka sidled as much as his new colleague. “Alex,” he joked. “I’ve been right here for six years and I don’t have a music. You’ve been right here for 3 weeks.”
And by some means you simply know the way Xhaka would have mentioned it, too: with that distinctive Xhaka-esque mix of blitheness and damage, insecurity and defiance, the throwaway remark that really comes from essentially the most tender of locations. Each participant is aware of their songs. Each participant is aware of once they don’t have one. And whereas some gamers don’t care, Xhaka has by no means been superb at disguising how a lot he cares about issues.
Take his extraordinary outburst after the 2-0 defeat at St James’ Park on the finish of final season: a scathing rebuke to his teammates delivered not within the intimacy of the dressing room or on an access-all-areas documentary, however on reside tv, straight down the digicam. “If somebody isn’t prepared for this recreation, keep at residence,” he spat in disgust. “When you’re nervous, keep on the bench, don’t come right here. We want individuals to have the balls to return right here and play.”
For a lot of his Arsenal profession, Xhaka’s no-filter strategy received him as many adversaries as admirers. The eagerness was by no means the issue; fairly it was the dearth of self-control, the crimson playing cards, the straightforward errors, that point he advised the followers to “fuck off” after getting substituted against Crystal Palace. As Arsenal floundered on the pitch, Xhaka by some means got here to embody every thing that was holding them again: all mouth and no assists, a thermostat set completely to “heatwave”.
And so like tempestuous lovers, for years Xhaka and the followers was a relationship that appeared doomed to failure. The mutual attraction was there, but additionally an intense and infrequently deeply private mutual irritation. So how did we get right here, with Xhaka closing in on 200 Premier League appearances, having fun with essentially the most prolific goalscoring season of his profession and at last – lastly – getting his personal music? “It was a completely wonderful, wonderful feeling,” Xhaka mentioned of the second he heard the brand new tune (“we’ve acquired… Granit Xhaka!”, sung to the tune of “Glad All Over”) for the primary time.
It has turn out to be modern to talk of Xhaka’s renaissance as a “redemption arc”, as if there have been a sure narrative inevitability to it. In actual fact it’s the form of trajectory that hardly ever ever happens in fashionable soccer, the place the tempers are quick, the judgments are snap and the labour market extra fluid than ever.
When you fall out with the followers, that’s usually it for you. Maybe there’s a comparability with Joelinton at Newcastle or Moussa Sissoko at Tottenham. However these had been extra easy, transactional examples of a ineffective participant not being ineffective.
In contrast, Xhaka-hatred appeared to return from a unique place fully and on reflection feels weirdly, uncomfortably disproportionate. Why, when Xhaka was hardly the one underperforming participant at Arsenal, when he embodied so most of the qualities that Arsenal had been missing in these decadent late-Wenger years – management, aggression, persona, the flexibility to remain slot in an harm disaster – did he turn out to be such a lightning rod for scorn, criticism, even loss of life threats?
Maybe on one degree it was as a result of Xhaka and Arsenal followers had extra in widespread than they might care to confess. Above all they shared an anger and loathing for the membership’s plight, mixed with a conviction that they alone may repair it. And so whereas Arsenal followers screamed into the void, Xhaka engaged within the sporting equal: flying into tackles, snarling and whinging, attempting to be in all places without delay. In a manner they held a cracked mirror up to one another, a self-fuelling cycle of pointless, indiscriminate aggression that finally achieved little or no.
As a result of, because it turned out, neither Xhaka nor the followers may repair Arsenal on their very own. When Mikel Arteta arrived in late 2019, Xhaka’s suitcases had been already packed. He had been stripped of the captaincy, Hertha Berlin had been and he was able to go. However Arteta had a plan for him. A extra strictly outlined function in a extra structured system. A system the place everybody knew their jobs and the requirements had been non-negotiable.
Not that issues went fully easily. There have been pointless crimson playing cards towards Liverpool and Manchester Metropolis final season, towards Burnley the season earlier than that. Once more Xhaka nearly left the membership in the summertime of 2021 and had he executed so he wouldn’t have been overly mourned. It is just in latest months that Xhaka has begun to vary opinions, a improvement related much less to Xhaka’s personal kind – which has truly been fairly good for a few years now – than to Arsenal’s as a crew.
And as with Xhaka-hate, Xhaka-love comes from a subtly completely different place to the extra easy devotion afforded to, say, Bukayo Saka or William Saliba. Whereas Xhaka as soon as reminded Arsenal of the unhealthy occasions, now he reminds them how far they’ve come because the unhealthy occasions. In a manner, he’s a residing image of the membership’s journey, one of many final remaining hyperlinks between Arsenal’s banter period and its baller period.
Maybe the closest parallel is with one in every of his opponents on Sunday. For years, and for most of the identical causes as Xhaka, Liverpool followers struggled to heat to Jordan Henderson, who on some degree appeared to replicate the broader flaws of the membership again at them. He arrived with a hefty price ticket. He was regularly described as brittle, or abnormal, or inconsistent. It took a number of managerial cycles for him to outline his function. And like Xhaka, he ultimately thrived not as an enforcer or one-man midfield whirlwind, however as a easy hyperlink in a fancy and purposeful system, an indispensable voice within the dressing room.
The simplest phrase to say in soccer is goodbye. Promote, sack, unfollow, block: that is a complete business geared in direction of battle and fissure, disposal and renewal. Mockingly, there most likely isn’t an ideal deal extra mileage within the Xhaka story. He has simply turned 30 and inside a few seasons you possibly can see him slowly making manner for a youthful mannequin: Fábio Vieira, or maybe a brand new signing. However for now he represents the ability of second probabilities: of the concept that what’s damaged can at all times be fastened.
