Now that’s a bit more like it! A first league win over José Mourinho for Arsene Wenger, bouncing straight back to winning ways after last week’s disappointment, as well as a clean sheet for Petr Cech to go with the three points.
Thankfully this week there was a bit more competition from the boys in red and white for a man of the match after the showing in the North London Derby. The United game seemed to produce quite a few notable performances from players like Aaron Ramsey and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, but I think it’d be harsh to not give the award to the player that got the ball rolling for Arsenal yesterday afternoon, Granit Xhaka.
After some speculation in midweek, it wasn’t a certainty that the Swiss international would be able to take part in the United game after picking up a knock last week against Tottenham. But start he did and didn’t he play well?
Despite picking up a reputation as a ‘dirty player’ early on in the season for the amount of yellow and red cards he was accumulating, Xhaka has turned that around in recent weeks with very composed performances in the centre of Arsenal’s midfield and yesterday was no different.
Before we get to his goal I think it’ll be interesting to see how Xhaka played aside from that. He completed 69 of his 74 attempted passes (94.5%), which was more than any other player during the game, some of which were expertly sprayed over to the Arsenal wide men to stretch the United defence, as well as set the Gunners of on attacks.
After the game, Wenger also said that “He (Xhaka) has improved from the start to now. He is slowly getting stature in the middle of the park”.
Which shows, even though he didn’t make a tackle yesterday, he did make two ball recoveries as well as helping out at the back with two clearances.
Now to that goal. If you cast your memory back to the start of the season Xhaka did hit a couple of long-range rockets against Hull City and Nottingham Forest, but we’ve to wait a while for the next one. Without any Manchester United players properly closing him down, why shouldn’t he have had a go? The midfielder was rewarded for taking the gamble, aided by a wicked deflection off Ander Herrera which took the ball over David de Gea to put Arsenal in control of the game by opening the scoring.
Xhaka did have another go from outside the box with a volley but unfortunately mishit the shot.
Looking forward to Arsenal’s next game against Southampton on Wednesday, Wenger has said that Xhaka picked up a recurrence of his previous injury at Spurs and is unsure on whether he will feature midweek. But other than that, well played yesterday Granit!
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