Unai Emery said Granit Xhaka is “devastated” after his traumatic departure from the Emirates Stadium pitch on Sunday but the Arsenal captain’s situation remains unresolved as the club give him time to recover his frame of mind.
Xhaka was loudly jeered off during the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace and swore at the crowd as he left the field, gesturing and removing his shirt in the process. It has cast his club captaincy, and future at Arsenal, into doubt. Emery said no decisions have been made and that, even though he thinks Xhaka should apologise for his actions, the player is yet to offer any public contrition. No punishment has been handed down either at this stage, even though Xhaka is expected to be fined.
“He is now devastated – devastated and sad,” Emery said. “We spoke yesterday and also on Sunday night. This morning he trained as normal with the group but he is devastated and sad about the situation.
“He knows he was wrong. He was wrong and he feels it inside very deeply. But that is normal as a human. You need, and every player needs, the supporters’ support.”
Arsenal are concerned about Xhaka, sensing his unhappiness had been building ever since he was booed by a section of supporters against Aston Villa in September. It was a precursor to Sunday’s events but there has also been a spike in online harassment of the Switzerland midfielder in recent weeks and his actions on Sunday have been interpreted as an outburst of festering frustration.
Xhaka feels particularly hurt because, from his perspective, his commitment to the club has been unstinting. He is frequently the first player to arrive at the training ground and the last to leave, even though he became a father for the first time earlier this month.
He is seen as a unifying figure within the dressing room and Arsenal are keen to give him as much time as he requires to frame any response to his situation. They will make counselling available if Xhaka deems it necessary.
None of this changes the fact there is an acknowledgment the furore cannot be allowed to slide. No apology has been forthcoming from Xhaka, against the advice of Emery and others in the Arsenal hierarchy, and his only visible action has been to change the profile picture on his Instagram account from one of him wearing the Arsenal armband to one of him captaining his country.
“Yes, I think when we make individual mistakes we need to make apologies for the circumstances,” Emery said. “I prefer to do that. We suggest to him to do it.”
Emery refused to put further pressure on Xhaka to make his peace with the fans,reiterating that the player is “not ready” to say sorry and saying there is no need to express contrition to his teammates or the coaching staff.
“I don’t need his apology,” he said. “He is now very down and we need to support him. I don’t need his apology to me now. I know, he knows, he was wrong but he is devastated and the first thing is to raise him up.”
Likewise, any decision about disciplinary procedures will be made later. “I think we can [later] speak about the same,” Emery said. “We are in the first step after his mistake. Now is to recover him as a person.”
In line with that outlook, Emery said any discussion about Xhaka’s continued captaincy will be taken “step by step” and he did not wish to broach the topic.
He spent 10 minutes with Josh Kroenke in the dressing room after the Palace game and suggested the Arsenal director supports his management of the problem.
“My ideal future is to watch Xhaka playing again and every supporter supporting him,” Emery said. “I don’t know if I can or will achieve it but this is my ideal.”
Xhaka will not be involved in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup fourth-round tie at Liverpool but that decision had been taken before Sunday. Mesut Özil will travel, though, ending a run of six absences from the match-day squad and Emery said the playmaker could take the captain’s armband at Anfield.
“I’m not thinking exactly yet, but we are going to decide the first XI and [whether] he’s in the first XI,” he said. “It depends on who else plays. He could be [captain], yes.”
“We have had this morning a very good conversation, Mesut and me, and I said to him I haven’t changed my idea about him … It was a very good conversation and he’s in the group [for the Liverpool game].”