Granit Xhaka got into a tussle with the Arsenal home ground recently and since then the midfielder has been frozen out of the squad.
The incident happened when the Swiss was being taken off during one of the matches and while walking towards the touchline you could hear the home crowd booing him – honestly to the amazement of a number of people.
But that whole incident did not die down there because instead of going off hurriedly, Granit Xhaka chose to abuse the crowd, take off his shirt and then walk straight inside the dressing room.
And while the midfielder has put out his version of the story in an official statement but Unai Emery has chosen to strip him of the captaincy giving the armband to Pierre Emerick Aubameyang.
“I had a meeting with him and told him he is no longer in the captain’s group,” said Emery on Tuesday[as reported by the BBC].
“He accepted my decision. I needed to take a decision and now it’s closed.”
A number of fans on social media are clearly not happy with just taking the armband from him as they want the manager to ban his for the rest of the season and then sell him off.
But while the fans and even some pundits have gone after the head of the player, Hector Bellerin has come out in support of Granit Xhaka saying that the whole dressing room stands beside him.
Hector Bellerin said: “I think sometimes it’s hard to deal with your feelings.
“He knows he made a mistake but as a dressing room, we all have to be together.
“These things happen and that’s it, we all back him. He’s playing his part now and we respect the players.
“We respect the decision of the coach and the club [to take away the captaincy].
“For us, it’s just to give him our love and care and for us, he is one of us, so we’re just helping him get through it as well.”
Since that incident, Granit Xhaka has not played a single game for the Gunners and it looks like the manager has no intentions of using him anytime soon.
But having said that, Unai Emery is not blessed with the best of midfielders this season so the manager but be tempted to use him especially when the games start coming thick and fast towards the Christmas period.
