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"He's a sunshine boy!" | Giles unimpressed with Xhaka as Arsenal captain

John Giles has branded it "ridiculous" that Granit Xhaka is the Arsenal captain as picked by a vo...



Soccer

"He's a sunshine boy!" | Giles unimpressed with Xhaka as Arsenal captain

John Giles has branded it "ridiculous" that Granit Xhaka is the Arsenal captain as picked by a vote of his fellow players. 

The Leeds and Ireland legend was, as always, on Thursday's Off The Ball and criticised the leadership of Arsenal manager Unai Emery for giving over the responsibility of selecting the club's captain to his players.

Stating that Xhaka is "the last person" who should be captaining Arsenal, Giles described the process as "absolutely ridiculous."

"It's absolute nonsense. He's the manager, he sees the players, he knows the players.

"Management has never changed. The manager is who is in charge of the team, who directs the team, picks the best players, gets rid of the bad players and picks the captain because he's the best suited to be captain.

Explaining that he couldn't see the reasoning behind Xhaka's pick as captain, Giles questioned whether the Swiss midfielder was picked solely due to his popularity in the dressing room.

"Xhaka might be a great lad with the players. He might buy them an extra drink, or maybe they are scared of him so they voted for him as captain.

"But you don't allow players to do that. Players are players, they are told what to do by the manager."

"When [Alex] Ferguson was manager of Manchester United, did the players pick Keane as captain? Maybe many of the players wouldn't have picked him because they wouldn't have got on with him."

Reflecting on the Keane and Viera-centric storylines in build-up to the game, Giles said that Arsenal's current captain was a long distance away from those of the previous decade.

"He's the total opposite of what a Roy Keane was. He's a sunshine boy. He's alright when they are winning 3-0 and he can get on the ball but Keane was best when they were losing 3-0, if they ever got to that stage."

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Arsenal Granit Xhaka Unai Emery