Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Brentford was seemingly somewhat tainted by an incident late in the second half revolving around the captains armband.
The Gunners were 2-0 up and cruising when Alexandre Lacazette, the club captain since the departure of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, was substituted for Eddie Nketiah.
Lacazette handed the youngster the armband to pass on, which he attempted to give to Xhaka. Xhaka, however, seemingly refused it on two occasions, and was subsequently seen shouting at the Arsenal bench.
Granit Xhaka turns his nose up at the Arsenal armband ©️? pic.twitter.com/NiGt73wx9C
— DAZN Canada (@DAZN_CA) February 19, 2022
However, it has since been cleared up as a misunderstanding by football.LDN writer Kaya Kaynak, who took to Twitter to reveal:
‘Laca was trying to give the armband to Tierney who was preparing to take a throw but couldn’t hear Laca’s shout. Laca therefore gave it to Eddie to give to KT, but EN was told to stay in the CF position by Arteta.’
‘Nketiah then tried to give it to Xhaka to give to Tierney at that point but the throw-in was about to be taken so GX told him to just hold on to it. Not a case of Xhaka refusing the responsibility at all & a bit of a stretch to say it’s a lack of commitment or anything like that.’
Top four race hotting up
The win for the Gunners was overshadowed by the fantastic game later in the day, which saw Tottenham pick up three valuable points away to Manchester City courtesy of a 3-2 win over Pep Guardiola’s side.
And it means that Arsenal and Spurs are one and four points behind fourth-placed Manchester United, with the Red Devils having played two more games than both London sides.
It makes their clash with Leeds United on Sunday afternoon even more important, and a defeat could see them fall away from the race for the top 4.
With 13 games still to play, the race is hotting up.
