Unai Emery has admitted Granit Xhaka may have played his last game for Arsenal and revealed the club have discussed the possibility of selling the midfielder in January.
The 27-year-old has declared himself unavailable for Saturday’s Premier League trip to Leicester – the fourth game he will miss after an angry confrontation with fans during last month’s clash with Crystal Palace prompted Emery to strip him of the captaincy.
Xhaka has trained with the first-team group as normal but is not in the right state of mind to play at the King Power Stadium tomorrow, where Emery will come under mounting pressure with Arsenal six points behind the hosts before kick-off.
“As a coach, I have a responsibility for the team,” he said. “We need a player like Granit Xhaka.
“But also, I don’t know if he’s going to play again. I don’t know, because if he is available in his mind to continue helping us and continuing defending the Arsenal shirt, I think time is giving us that solution.
“And then, if I decide he is in the group with us, if he is ready and 100 per cent in his mind with the decision to help us and to play with his quality helping us. Because we know we need that quality and that player.
“And after we have a solution. But for example, after [Dani] Ceballos’ [hamstring] injury we have one less player to use tomorrow in the midfield or the attacking midfield and we now don’t really have a lot of players to play in this position.
“It’s important now to stay without Granit Xhaka, but I don’t know - maybe he can play in the future, maybe he can’t play.
“We are going to continue but the club knows every time how he is thinking and also how I am thinking about that circumstance.”
Asked about whether the club had discussed moving Xhaka on in January, Emery said: “Yes, I asked that question.
“The club knows the player's decision at the moment and my decision or my idea about that situation and the circumstances.
“We are now a little weaker without him in that position because we have one less player in that position.”
Arsenal have won just two of their last nine League games and have let a lead slip in their last four matches across all competitions.
Emery suggested that a string of off-field problems have undermined their campaign, citing not just the Xhaka issue but also Laurent Koscielny’s decision to force through an exit in pre-season and the attempted carjacking suffered by Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac in north London in July.
“We are not playing really with a good performance to impose our idea, impose our capacity on each match,” he said.
“I said to them we rarely lost at home but we didn't impose as I want and will want in the next matches in our process. It's a process we need to do with the players.
“Also some circumstances didn't help us. But I know and they now that we can do better and we are going to work to achieve that better performance in the next matches. And tomorrow is a very good opportunity, but above all we need that balance, emotional balance, to achieve, and to get the emotional balance to play with all the confidence they can and then show their quality.”
