Oh Xhaka is a liability for sure, preaching to the converted but when you have two flash points in two different games involving two completely different players - one week Xhaka, the next the usually superb Partey….it speaks to something much larger going on.
But like with many of the things discussed on here it’s not an either or, if it’s not one player it’s another.
And my feeling for the moment is that to a degree you have to take the rough with the smooth. These players that irritate us have played an integral part in a side that’s dropped less than twenty points all season…and that’s including some teeth grinding fuck ups both from players and coach.
And this is where I come back to the city factor. Take away city and the last two games would realistically have meant that instead of going from 5 points ahead to 1 point ahead, we’d be looking at say 12-14 points reduced to 8-10 points…concerning for sure but we wouldn’t all be thinking we’d blown it.
And I don’t say that to say that it’s not possible for us to challenge city, I’m just saying that the margin of error is extremely tight. And I’ve never known an Arsenal side title winning or otherwise not to make errors, not to drop silly points. And maybe it’s a positive to say that we can see where we went wrong and how we’d go about rectifying them