Martin Keown Urges Arsenal To Sell Granit Xhaka
Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown believes the club should consider parting ways with Granit Xhaka when the season comes to a close. The Switzerland international has been prone to positional errors over the course of the campaign and Keown was once again disappointed by his performance against Manchester United.
Speaking after the game, Keown said: “Granit Xhaka has made numerous mistakes and was poor again. There was a time when an Arsenal player could make one or, maybe, two errors and then he would be replaced.Maybe it was more ruthless in those days. Xhaka has played 35 Premier League games, more than anyone else at the club this season.”
Xhaka has certainly divided opinion among the club’s supporters this season, and the new head coach is likely to have a key decision to make over the midfielder’s future. At just 25, Xhaka has a couple of more years to transform into a proper holding midfielder but it will be interesting to see whether the new manager has a similar patience shown by Arsene Wenger.
Regardless of Xhaka’s situation, Arsenal are expected to pursue at least one central midfielder during the summer and they have not been any clear favourites to join the club to date. AS Roma’s Radja Nainggolan was talked up in the media shortly after the Gunners’ alleged interest in Luis Enrique but the speculation has since ceased.
Arsenal are currently on 57 points for the Premier League campaign and they need to pick up a victory over Burnley in the upcoming weekend in order to assure themselves of the sixth position. Prior to that, they have a crunch Europa League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid and they need to score at least one goal in order to overturn an away goal deficit at the Wanda Metropolitano. The first leg at the Emirates ended in a 1-1 draw.