He’s been a virtual ever-present this season and he’s been utilised in plenty of central-midfield combinations, so how does Granit Xhaka change his game based on his partner?
Our Swiss midfielder impressed alongside Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere in both legs of our Europa League last-16 tie against AC Milan - and found himself at the base of the midfield.
“When I play with those two, I’m a bit deeper, basically just in front of the defence,” Granit explains in Saturday’s matchday programme. “Jack and Aaron like to go forward, to get into the box, whereas I’m happy to stay back and build the play from a deeper area.
“In the past it’s worked well, even if we haven’t had the results to back that up, and in the AC Milan games, we combined well together.”
Four days before our home win over Milan, Granit started in a midfield two with Mohamed Elneny.
“Mo likes to sit quite deep sometimes, and think from a defensive perspective,” Xhaka added. “Jack and Aaron naturally go forward more. But we all have our qualities and always try to help each other out.
“I’ve always said that to be successful, you need all 11 players, plus those on the bench and those in the squad.
“You can’t just win a game because two or three players have a good game. You have to work together as a unit, both in defence and in attack. I think we’ve become stronger defensively because we’re all really focusing on what we need to do.
“Everyone knows that we have a lot of quality going forward, but at the moment I think we’ve got that balance and we need to keep that.”
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