Ben Davies has suggested that he is prepared to set aside Tottenham‘s rivalry with Arsenal and help Granit Xhaka.
Xhaka swore at fans during an outburst while leaving the pitch to chorus of jeers from home supporters at the Emirates Stadium last weekend.
The Swiss midfielder, who is captain of Arsenal, was left out of Unai Emery’s squad this weekend and Davies says players must band together to help each other.
“I spoke to a psychologist we had at Wales and he said that footballers are really in a melting pot of anxiety when their performance is critiqued by millions of people every game,” the left-back said.
“It’s not like if you work in a shop that your performance will get judged by millions.
“It’s a stressful environment. I get it if players get down and if players have evenings when they are struggling. That is normal and it’s something that needs to be spoken about more. All you can do if it’s your team-mate is try to help.
“But as far as someone like Xhaka is concerned, when you read, he is struggling or maybe needed counselling, nobody wants to see that.
“Rivalries aside, if we could help him out, we would.”
Xhaka has blamed his poor performances on abuse from fans.
Spurs are no strangers to criticism from the stands at the moment, with a prolonged spell of bad form leaving manager Mauricio Pochettino and his players under fire from supporters.
They visit Everton on Sunday afternoon before a midweek Champions League trip to Serbia, and Davies hopes the two games allow Spurs to gather some momentum.
“The next two games are good opportunities to win,” the 26-year-old commented.
“Everton have amazing players but are a bit stop-start at the moment. It’s a good opportunity for us to go there and show what we can do.
“Red Star is the same. It’s a game we want to be winning.
“We believe we can win. If we can overcome these two challenges, it will be a good bit of momentum going forward.”
