jones wrote:
Xhaka was easily one of the better performers tonight and he played a bunch of good crossfield passes with his weaker foot
I thought he was alright too. I saw plenty of people who wanted him dropped before the game and I think it's the wrong way to go about it. Everyone knows what this team looks like without him at this stage, and I don't teckon that's going to change just because we have Partey. Thomas should enable us to stretch out a bit more and find better triangles in midfield, not replace the base of it.
That's what we were missing today by the way, better angles. It seemed obvious early on that Ceballos wasn't hundred percent which makes it mindboggling that we left him out there for the full ninety. Neither he nor the team was better off for it. We had numerous options on the bench. Instead things kept getting worse and you had these ridiculous solutions to find another corner to complete the triangle: striker dropping down deep, Auba playing rightback, Auba getting into midfield to support the defence... Arteta solves one issue and creates two new ones. Unimpressive.