Is Granit Xhaka really the right choice for Arsenal captain?

Unai Emery announced on Friday that Granit Xhaka will be the new Arsenal captain, but is it the right appointment for the club?

Well, we’re more than a month into the 2019-20 Premier League season, and Unai Emery has finally announced his widely-speculated 5 captains for the season. Swiss international Granit Xhaka will take the armband as captain, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Hector Bellerin, Alexandre Lacazette, and Mesut Ozil acting as the assistants – in that order.

The decision comes after the Arsenal squad was given a ballot to decide their captain, with Xhaka coming out on top.

While Xhaka is no stranger to leadership roles, many Arsenal fans aren’t happy with the appointment. He is certainly somebody who splits opinion, but the fact that the Arsenal team voted him in as captain tells you all you need to know: he is a leader behind-the-scenes, which is something the fans don’t get to see, making their opinion a rather half-sighted one.

Granit Xhaka has recently become captain of the Switzerland national team as well, and he was captain of Borussia Monchengladbach before he joined Arsenal, in his early 20’s no less. As I mentioned earlier, he is no stranger to leadership roles and he could very well lead this club in the right direction.

While his on the pitch displays remain questionable, being captain doesn’t mean he is undroppable, so fans don’t have to worry about that too much. In fact, Arsenal’s last 3 captains, Mikel Arteta, Per Mertesacker, and Laurent Koscielny, all hardly saw the pitch during their time with the armband.

“I trust and believe in him; he is a good man, a good professional, a good player”, said Unai Emery, when explaining the decision on Friday afternoon. “Sometimes he has made a mistake, yes, but the most important thing is to analyse, learn and correct that in the future.”

At the end of the day, Granit Xhaka being named permanent captain doesn’t change Arsenal too significantly on the pitch, because in all of his appearances this season before being officially named captain, he was wearing the armband anyways. So yes, you could say that him being appointed captain is the right choice, if both the players and the coach trust him, and if it won’t influence team selections.

Xhaka first appearance as permanent captain is set to be in Arsenal’s next match on Monday, as they travel to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United, in a fixture which will undoubtedly cause them problems.