UNAI EMERY INSISTS Granit Xhaka played well for Arsenal against Tottenham even though he conceded a “very disappointing” penalty during the first half of Sunday’s 2-2 derby draw.
The Switzerland midfielder lunged into a challenge on Son Heung-min and got nowhere near the ball, allowing Harry Kane to double the lead from the spot following Christian Eriksen’s opener.
Xhaka was heavily criticised over the incident, even though Arsenal rallied in impressive style to fight back for a point through goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Emery, though, says there were more positive than negative aspects to the 26-year-old’s performance.
“In 90 minutes, I am very proud of his work,” said the former Valencia and Paris Saint-Germain boss. ”Some mistakes we can have and I want to use [them] to progress and improve. There are more positive things collectively, individually and also with Xhaka for me.
“The penalty is really one action that is very disappointing. He worked very well. He played very well. If we won the match, maybe we’d speak about the mistakes less.”
Emery felt the Gunners deserved at least a share of the spoils for their second-half performance and was proud of the atmosphere created by the home fans as they chased a late winner.
Obviously, after 2-0, we can be very proud of our response and the atmosphere we created and how our supporters pushed us after our goal to get the second goal and have chances to score the third,” he said.
“The result… we deserved more. Their movement, [in] the second half, we controlled better than the first. Tactically, the first goal is one mistake but because we played that action more with heart than head.
“We had two players trying to win the ball with Harry Kane – we needed one to cover. The second half, we did that work perfectly.
With our supporters, we created a very good atmosphere. The game was amazing for football but, for us, it’s not enough.
“Really, I am very proud of our work, our players, our supporters.”
Arsenal are two points above Spurs in the Premier League table, having taken two wins, one draw and a defeat from their opening four matches of the season.
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Let the black card witch-hunt begin. Lead by the masters of cynical play Tyrone, big surprise!
Donegal not happy with it neither that’s their game plan out the window
Dublin won an All Ireland with it, Mayo did it to them the year before. Nobody is innocent here, Harte’s Tyrone got 3 All Irelands by playing in the rules of the game it’s up to the rest to put it up to them as all teams play with the same rules.
are you saying dublin won a championship with cynical play?
No, I’m saying Dublin played by the rules of the sport to win, Mayo did the same to get to two All Irelands and Tyrone did it to tie for Team of the Decade. You play to win or you don’t want it badly enough Paul.
I think the black card will effect Donegal and Tyrone more beacuse they play on the edge I dont agree with the blackcard anyway as if a incident is bad enough to send a player off its a redcard
Still think, given time, it will be positive. There’ll always be mistakes made, but you can see that body checking the third man runner has already been stamped out.
It was a poor decision from Goldrick, no getting away from it.
Coldrick made a mistake – get over it! The black card is a great idea for the first 65 minutes of a match – teams will still do what it takes to get a win so I can still see lads getting dragged down, etc. Being able to replace only the first 3 black cards helps in this regard.
You shouldn’t be able to replace a black carded player in the last 5 mins.
Yeah 2 people who argued against it before it was introduced saying the same thing after it has led to confusion.. can’t wait until further controversies effect your own teams and we then have you all backing the black card and not being critical of officials or rules at all as its only a tyrone and donegal thing obviously. ..
First Mickey heart, now Peter Canavan.
they see the writing on the wall daragh the two blackcards should have been redcards