Granit Xhaka has told people to show Fulham more respect after Arsenal were criticised for the way they celebrated beating Marco Silva’s side.
Arsenal came from behind to defeat Fulham 2-1 on Saturday, maintaining their perfect start to the season and going top of the Premier League.
The Gunners, however, received some criticism for how they celebrated the win both on social media and via beIN SPORTS presenter Richard Keys and pundit Andy Gray.
Xhaka insists Arsenal will take no notice of that and carry on celebrating, while also calling for newly-promoted Fulham to be given credit for their own impressive start to their latest top-flight campaign.
“Listen, the people maybe they forget sometimes,” said Xhaka. “I have been in Switzerland, I have been in Germany, I know the leagues and the Premier League is totally different.
“You can play against the last [team] and you will struggle for 90 minutes. You don’t have a team here that gives up. It doesn’t matter if they are 3-0 up or 3-0 down, they go for 90 minutes.
“You have respect for every club and the people if they say that we can’t celebrate because it was Fulham, they don’t respect the Fulham team.
“You saw them as well yesterday, they won again [against Brighton]. They have lost only against us in five games, I think.
“So give them some credit, give them some respect - not only Fulham, but every team that comes here or we go away to, because you will struggle against every team if you are not 100 per cent ready for them.
“If you don’t celebrate, they say to us: ‘Why don’t you celebrate?’ If we celebrate, they say: ‘Why do you celebrate?’ So sometimes you can’t make everyone happy.
“But this is our job, this is what we want to do. We celebrate if we win, it doesn’t matter against who.”
