Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka has proven Rio Ferdinand's harsh criticism of him wrong in just two months.
The Swiss midfielder has enjoyed two stellar performances this week in the heart of Mikel Arteta's midfield, with the Gunners securing back-to-back wins against Chelsea and Manchester United following three consecutive Premier League losses. Xhaka was instrumental in the north Londoners' second goal at Stamford Bridge and he then netted his side's third during Saturday's 3-1 win against the Red Devils.
This comes just two months after United legend Ferdinand heavily criticised the former Borussia Monchengladbach for his disciplinary issues. When asked on his Vibe with Five podcast whether Xhaka and Gabriel Magalhaes ' red cards this season were down to poor discipline or being rash, he said: "Both.
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"Lack of discipline. You've got to have sometimes a trigger in your mind that when you're going in for a tackle 'is this the right time or not?'
"That separates the top players a lot of the time from the okay, good players. If you can't rely on people, they're worthless. Don't have them."
Xhaka's excellent recent form has proved Ferdinand's harsh criticism wrong, with the 29-year-old also impressing Arsenal boss Arteta. Speaking after the match, the Spaniard said: "Well what we need is some balance in everything that we do.
"Especially with the characters, and personalities that are in that team. With the youth and academy players that we are bringing in, with the signings that we made, with the qualities that we had.
"So how we can interact, how that restoration can start to build what we want to be on and off the field, and Granit in my opinion was a key role, and he was going to have a key leadership role to achieve what we wanted. "
