Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka is aiming for European football at the Emirates Stadium next season and thinks the Gunners are still in with a chance of obtaining it through the Premier League.
Following Sunday’s remarkable comeback against West Ham to draw 3-3 Arsenal are sitting in tenth spot seven points behind the Hammers in 5th place.
With the Carabao Cup and FA Cup winners likely to already to have European football sewn up through their league positions, seventh could be all that is needed to guarantee a place in next season’s continental competitions and Liverpool in seventh are only four points ahead of Mikel Arteta’s team.
If Arsenal can win the Europa League they would be back in the Champions League for the first time since the 2016-17 season some Xhaka said the Gunners are aiming for.
“In the league we are back within reach of the European places and now we need a run to make it in there. In the Europa League it would be absolutely important to get to the final,” the Switzerland international told Blick.
“So far it has been an up and down season. We got off to a good start at the beginning, then didn’t score in a number of games, but now things are going much better again,” Xhaka said.
The former Arsenal captain also spoke about the criticism he receives when he puts in a bad performance or gets sent off and questioned why he is singled out over his teammates.
“In football you have to live with criticism, but there also have to be limits,” he said.
“There are other players who get red cards, but they don’t get criticised as much as I do. That doesn’t ruin me. I can handle it, and this time I came back even stronger, which many people did not expect.”
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Xhaka’s disciplinary record this season reads seven yellow cards and one red in 37 appearances across all competitions.
The red card came earlier this season against Burnley and was his first in Arsenal colours since January 2017 showing that the Swiss international has learned to control his aggression in recent seasons.
With the yellow card suspension tariff raised to ten cards in the league before a ban Xhaka with just five league yellow cards looks to be cleaning up his act. Barring another sending off should be available for Arteta for the remainder of the season as he aims to lead the side back into Europe’s premier competitions next term.
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