daredevil It's fair to say we've spent 120m on replacing Xhaka and have ballsed it up.
Fair to say? Nah. I think that's a huge stretch.
There's very little Xhaka offered us going forward that Rice doesn't. The latter has more product in both directions. And Rice is still far from perfect. There are huge retrospective distortions about Xhaka based on a handful of Hallmark moments.
With the praise of Xhaka we're also referring to a period (first half of 22–23) during which Martinelli and Jesus had their peak Arsenal form, back when they used to call Jesus "Master of Chaos" not "Master of Paychecks". You see glimpses of what Martinelli can do when he's supported from the centre whenever Trossard plays there.
Havertz at 9 has cost us a bit on the left, his "space finding" does the opposite of occupying defenders and makes Martinelli's job harder—so we get fewer cutbacks and penetrating ball-carrying runs out of Gabi, and more corners.
