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‘Only Arteta wanted me to stay at Arsenal’- Xhaka
Granit Xhaka has opened on how he felt Arsenal gave him “little respect” after he was stripped of the club captaincy under Unai Emery before Mikel Arteta stepped in to save his Gunners career.
Speaking to The Athletic, he said: “The club showed me little respect even though I was the captain. It was clear they wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible, apart from one person: Mikel Arteta.
“When I met him for the first time, my bags were already packed and I was about to hop on a plane. With my heart and soul, I had already left the club. I said to him, ‘The solution is for me to go’.
“Mikel told me he wanted me to stay. But I wasn’t sure. I remember speaking to my dad at the time. He told me, ‘Let’s go’. For the first time ever, he told me to run away. He said there was no future for me at Arsenal.’”
Xhaka of course stayed at the club until summer 2023, repairing his reputation and helping the club return to the Champions League.
He added: “I could not imagine myself playing for Arsenal again. I said to him, ‘I just want to be somewhere where the fans don’t boo me’. But he was so convincing.
“For the first time in my life, I took a decision without talking to my family first. I got up and said, ‘OK, I’ll stay’.
“We embraced and, from that day on, I returned to training and it was like nothing ever happened.”
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