Since his return to the island, Granit Xhaka has been thrilling the Premier League. On Saturday, the Swiss player will face his former club Arsenal with surprise team Sunderland. Gunners coach Mikel Arteta sang the praises of Xhaka, whom he coached for four years, on Friday.
On Saturday, AFC Sunderland will host what is arguably the “real” top match of the day: league leaders Arsenal, who are already six points clear at the top of the table, will be visiting the Black Cats, who are tied with Liverpool for fourth place and could close the gap on the leaders with a win against the Gunners.
The club from the northeast of England is certainly capable of tripping up Arsenal. This is particularly due to one player who has been receiving praise from all sides since his return to the island. Not least from TV expert Jamie Carragher, who recently even described him as the “transfer of the year”: Granit Xhaka.
After two years in Leverkusen, the 33-year-old Swiss decided to leave the Werkself in the summer and ended up at the Stadium of Light after a few detours. But there he quickly silenced his critics and is one of the reasons why Sunderland now has a top match ahead of it. One that is also of particular significance for Xhaka: the midfielder played most of his 234 Premier League games for Arsenal, where he was under contract for seven years between 2016 and 2023.
Mikel Arteta has been on the sidelines there for almost six years now. Xhaka once succeeded him as a midfielder when he moved from Borussia Mönchengladbach to London—and three years later, after Arteta was hired as Gunners coach, he played a very important role.
The 43-year-old emphasized this with impressive words at the press conference ahead of the match. “He made me a better coach,” said Arteta, who joined the Gunners as a rookie head coach at the time. “He helped us develop and improve as a soccer team and as a club.
I will be eternally grateful to him for that because I have many fond memories of him.“ Even today, Xhaka is still ”one of the best“ players in the league, Arteta emphasized: ”I loved every minute we spent together.”
Arteta helps Xhaka through a difficult phase
That appreciation is likely to be mutual, because Xhaka also owes Arteta a lot. Under Arteta’s predecessor, Unai Emery, the Swiss player was appointed Arsenal captain in the summer of 2019, before the coach stripped him of the armband after a few months following a dispute with the home fans. “When I joined the club, he was going through a difficult period in his life and career, and we all tried to support him, give him a different perspective, and make him feel loved and appreciated,” Arteta recalls. “He responded in an incredible way.”
Together, Arsenal, Arteta, and Xhaka won the FA Cup in the summer of 2020 and the Community Shield in the same year, so now it’s time for a reunion. “It will be an emotional game for me—I had seven fantastic years there,” Xhaka recently emphasized. “Playing against them here in Sunderland is obviously very special. Hopefully I can enjoy it too, and we’ll see who is the better team on the day.”