Dear Granit Xhaka, it has been passionate, complicated and very, very memorable

Dear Granit,

The stage was yours and you savoured every second of song, every ray of spotlight. Bidding adieu with a pair of goals and 60,000 smiles, this morality tale — from heartache and hostility, moving on to forgiveness, catharsis and reinvention — ended up with a very special kind of Arsenal happiness. “Granit Xhaka,” serenaded the North Bank, “we want you to stay.” Only a madman would have imagined that scenario in your darkest days, when you felt so much negativity you felt compelled to isolate yourself and stay away from the club.

As you scored and soaked up the adulation, making your way across the pitch to hug your mate Mohamed Elneny with your song blasting around the crowd, it must make it hard to leave this after all.

Looking back over these seven years, it has been complicated. It has been passionate. It has been very, very memorable. What a rarity to come across a player who elicits emotions among their own fanbase that span the entire spectrum. It is not often a player lurches from one extreme to the other, taking the scenic route with plenty of unexpected stops along the way. But that was your path, Granit.

Take a poll from 100 different Arsenal fans and they might come up with 100 different assessments of how they interpreted this particular relationship. Generalisation is impossible. You probably don’t have a one-dimensional view in return. How could you, when you have experienced jeering, abuse, support and admiration along the way. But one thing is clear: the overwhelming majority involved in this attachment have reviewed their judgment over the last year or so, and found new warmth and respect.

Mikel Arteta shed no light on Xhaka’s future, with negotiations under way with Bayer Leverkusen. He was, though, happy to enthuse about the reception he received. “Well deserved,” he said. “He’s had an incredible season. I think one year back I spoke to him and I told him: ‘There’s a question mark on you, you have to deliver more, you have to be better, I’m going to challenge you to play here.’ He went back and I think he started to train the next day. He came back in preseason four kilos less, fit, really willing to do it. He’s been exceptional. He’s been a key part of the team, the success of the team and I’m so happy everybody is appreciating what he’s done.”

What were you hoping for when you arrived at Arsenal in the summer of 2016, Granit? Optimism would not have been misplaced. Arsenal had just finished second in the league, you had played every minute for Switzerland at the Euros, were a young captain of your Bundesliga club and were coveted at the age of 23. A midfielder by the name of Mikel Arteta had just said his teary farewell to Arsenal and Arsene Wenger, who had been tracking you for a while, acted quickly to bring you in from Borussia Monchengladbach for £35million. Keen, combative and ready, you were excited, saying, “I’m an aggressive player and also a leader.”

The first season demonstrated how your strong character, supposedly well-suited to the Premier League, could also incite friction. The transition to the Premier League was erratic. Arsenal’s midfield was messy, especially without Santi Cazorla, and you did what you normally do: try to cover too many cracks, take on more responsibility which could sometimes leave you stretched or reckless. After one too many lunges, and two red cards, discipline was a hot story. Wenger even felt compelled to say, “I would encourage him not to tackle.”

That was unrealistic, though. There is only one way of playing for you and that is full steam.

When Wenger left his final message to Arsenal was “take care of the values of this club”. The irony, considering what was to come a season later, was that you were the player in Arsenal’s day-to-day life that did that the most seriously. You were always very clear and deeply committed to urging everyone in the squad to aim for the highest standards.

Then came Unai Emery, who did not help you when he dallied about whether or not to make you captain — the famous players’ vote was a strange one. A defining point in your Arsenal career is that incendiary incident when you were substituted against Crystal Palace at the Emirates. After some rocky form, the crowd were heckling as you sauntered off. Emotions flipped. Self-control went out the window. You tore off the armband and swore at your tormentors.

It was quite the maelstrom of emotion in there. Some fans felt fury at you, others despair that any Arsenal captain could be treated that way. Your team-mate on the touchline, Lucas Torreira, was in tears. Some of the senior players came to see you that night at home to offer their consolation.

Was it a transformative moment in your life? Such depth of feeling and life experience absorbed can take you to places you never expected to go. Against all probability you were reeled back in again. In the midst of the storm, the rope that attached you to Arsenal was down to its last, most fragile thread. Mikel Arteta arrived like a hand in the darkness to grab you, and slowly and carefully pull you aboard again.

Of course, that time of rehabilitation was difficult and sensitive. For all the support within the dressing room, outside was trickier to navigate. As you said: “I think I am a different person off the pitch. I like to joke, to laugh a lot, but on the pitch I am the guy with a lot of passion. I can’t change that. I wish people outside could understand me a little bit more. But what I can tell people is from the first day until the last day I am here I will do everything for the football club.”

Feeling misunderstood came with the territory. Sometimes with fans, occasionally with pundits and certainly by officials. Throughout your time in the Premier League, Arsenal watchers were exasperated to use what became known as the ITWGX index. To give it its full name it is “If It Was Granit Xhaka” and became a barometer of punishment for challenges by others, who usually got away with rough stuff. You knew it too. “When I came to the Premier League everybody said in this league you can go very hard and I love it, this is exactly my game and what I want to do,” you said. “But when you see some tackles and imagine if I was in this position? I would be sent off straight away.”

The redemption arc was almost perfect. A couple of years ago when the relationship with fans was mending, you didn’t ever expect to actually feel something approximating love, but for some, maybe even for you, Granit, it has gone much closer to that place than anyone expected possible.

It didn’t quite reach completion. But there were some cathartic and uplifting moments along the way. The whacked goal against Manchester United… The renaissance in an advanced position this season… The genuine happiness and shared celebrations with the fans… Even a song to call your own. This season your smiles have been heartfelt and joyful. The new dimension to your relationship with Arsenal’s supporters was unmissable.

As you have come to expect, critics were never too far away. There was blame apportioned for awaking Anfield because of a show of bravado up against Trent Alexander-Arnold. Honestly, though, there were so many factors that contributed to the dip that allowed the title to slip away it is stretching it to pinpoint that as the defining moment. It becomes yet another media-fuelled Xhaka controversy — one of many you have learned to live with.

Some might look back and regard the seasons of Champions League absence as the Granit Xhaka years. You arrived in 2016, just after Arsenal qualified for their 19th consecutive season in Europe’s prime competition. They had just finished runners-up in the Premier League. That summer you were a key signing, along with Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez. Maybe not the most fruitful window. Safe to say you made much more of an impression than the other newcomers.

But apart from that first season, when you featured in the Champions League in a run that culminated in a humiliating 5-1 home defeat to Bayern Munich in the knockouts, your time at the club coincided with seasons of stressful striving to get back there. And now that Arsenal are back there, the signs are that you are moving on. Is there a sadness in that?

So much of your Arsenal years were a period of widespread flux, of reorganisation off the field and major restructuring on it. There has been chaos, change, false dawns and new dawns. Kinder eyes might regard your contribution as valuable in endeavouring to keep pushing your team-mates and to constantly reiterate the meaning of Arsenal standards. You played the part of a non-armbanded captain for a good while.

That aspect of your style never wavered. Whether it was determined, provocative, reckless, protective or encouraging, everything was always done with passion in the name of Arsenal Football Club.

You won the FA Cup twice, and your performance at Wembley in 2020 was immense, and a great marker of this spiritual comeback. You have just had a wonderful season, culminating in this metaphorical bear hug of a game. The Ashburton Army captured the mood with a banner: “If this is the end, farewell Granit”.

So, thank you and good luck. As Vinnie Jones, the hard man staring straight down the lens, put it on the silver screen… It’s been emotional.

Love,

The Arsenal

(Top image: Getty Images)