It has taken a while but Arsenal are finally being praised for their leadership again.
Alexandre Lacazette earned acclaim not only for his two goals in last night’s Europa League demolition of Slavia Prague, but also for taking a knee directly in front of the Czech outfit prior to kickoff.
Lacazette was Arsenal’s captain on the night in the absence of the ill Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but Granit Xhaka reminded Gunners fans why he too once held the armband.
Despite deputising at left-back in place of the injured Kieran Tierney once again, Xhaka posted an exemplary performance.
The Switzerland international also earned plaudits for his leadership in the win at Sheffield United last weekend, after Arsenal uploaded their new Open Mic segment in which the 28-year-old’s on-the-field comments were captured.
Xhaka displayed similar quality against Slavia on Thursday and according to Football London, the midfielder sprinted across the pitch to ‘yell’ compliments at Nicolas Pepe after opening the scoring on 18 minutes.
The report adds that the former Borussia Monchengladbach player was heard shouting ‘yes nice one!’ at the Ivory Coast international, having previously been ‘barking orders’ at him to tighten up defensively.
Of course, Xhaka has been accused of lacking leadership more than once, hence why Unai Emery stripped him of the captaincy a couple of months before the Spaniard was sacked toward the end of 2019, but the Swiss star clearly has his teammates’ respect by the same token and from an Arsenal perspective, it’s good to see.
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