• ignore_my_name@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    I know he wanted to go back to Germany and we rightfully respected that, but at the time I thought it was a big mistake to sell him and keep Partey. Should have been the other way around and that decision looks worse now.

    • qtdsswk@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      It only looks worse because Partey is not playing. We should have kept him one more year to better integrating Rice (maybe Kai), but doubt everyone will be happy with the play time if Xhaka stays.

    • sandbag-1@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      There were buyers for Xhaka, there were no buyers for Partey. Can’t sell players to nobody

    • Pippelitraktori@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      It’s not really a decision if he wanted to go. Xhaka had earned more than enough goodwill for the club to respect his wishes.

      • 12EggsADay@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        It’s kind of interesting that he had his best season and felt he wanted to go.

        It must have then been the best decision for both parties.

    • GMBethernal@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      He played good for 1/2 years out of 7, it was always a meme about XHAKA REDEMPTION ARC??? and it finally happened, a big reason a lot of us are patient with Havertz

  • TheGreatSwissEmperor@alien.topOPB
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    1 year ago

    With the next game he will also become Switzerland‘s most capped player for the national team. Despite his (for some people) controversial ways, he is truly one of the greatest swiss footballplayers.

    • bearfistsoffurry@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      He was my favourite Arsenal player when he was there. Sad that he left but also glad that he’s at a club and league that values him.

      It was so frustrating reading the shite Gooners were spewing about him online, and listening to the clueless English media was as bad.

      • Xori1@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s so strange to call it nationality-born. Wouldn’t it make more sense if that word was related to the place of birth?

        English makes no sense sometimes.

      • Humble-End-7891@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        That’s Broja bruh. But fr at least on a potential level Broja is unlike nothing that came from Albania. Whether he can translate that to efficiency and a good career is diff thing

        • NdritoKante@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          As much as I think Broja has high potential, he’s 22 and struggles to get minutes for Chelsea (amongst injuries and other things). At 22 Xhaka was cooking for Monchengladbach and one of the most promising midfielders from the Bundesliga, plus his record for Switzerland is very respectable. Broja still has a long way to go

      • ogqozo@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        I don’t really know what it means tbh. The 6th biggest league in Europe is probably 2. Bundesliga or English Championship, looking at clubs’ facilities, signings, revenues. Of course those teams don’t compete in Europe, but that’s the system in Europe, not the league. The highest revenue top-flight competition after France was Russia, now it’s probably not so it’s Turkey. In terms of sport results and famous clubs, the big one in Europe is Portugal, but Dutch clubs had some good results in UEFA competitions in recent years.

        There are also several non-European leagues that are smaller in revenue than France but bigger than any other European top-flight - actually six of them by most recent data - so hard to say which two would be in the “7”.

        All in all I don’t know what people mean saying “top 7”, but seeing the publication is German I assume Western European ones.

    • farqueue2@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Can we expand it to top 13,895 leagues so I can quote my unimpressive soccer 5s stats?

        • Oliverfk3@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          According to Opta u/farqueue2 ranks last in percentage of passes completed in the top 13,895 leagues.

    • Footballpro12@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Honestly…Should be top 8 leagues, imo.

      I feel like the gap between Belgium/Portugal/Netherlands isn’t really that big. Portugal and Netherlands have a stronger 'big 3", but Belgium has the stronger league on average with more teams capable of competing in Europe.

      That, and Belgium has historically always been a top 10 ( even top 5 at times ) league.

  • FoggingHill@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    He was brilliant last season, selling him was a huge mistake. Happy he’s still smashing it

    • Andigaming@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      He wanted to leave and we respected that, what good is keeping a player against their will going to do?

      • FoggingHill@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Wasn’t it mutual? Sure we could’ve convinced him to stay if we weren’t looking to bring in havertz

    • depressingmirror2@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      He was more a sign of how well we were playing than a cause of it. He’d get a goal or assist in games we played well, but he was never carrying the team or the best player on any day.

    • dishler712@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      They sold him because he wanted to leave. I doubt Arsenal had any plans to move on from him if he was happy staying in London.

    • bakugou-kun@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Don’t think it was a mistake to sell him. He was amazing but he was limited. He would eventually need to be replaced by someone better. The issue so far has been that the replacement Kai Havertz has been very underwhelming and Partey has been injured.

  • BluePowderJinx@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Trying to replace him with Havertz is one of the most idiotic things in Arteta’s tenure.

    Please come back

      • BluePowderJinx@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        It’s not even adequately, he didn’t replace him in any sense as Havertz is nothing like Xhaka to what he brought in that midfield LCM role. Basically just bought a donkey-shaped Trojan Horse for no reason other than his own ego of thinking he can fix him.

  • AskNotAks@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    I remember when our fans used to call him a sideways merchant who didn’t have the legs to play in midfield

  • bakalaka25@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    So the fuck what? Havertz put his own pants on like a big boy a few times since we signed him