Earlier in the week, Mikel Arteta was asked whether his senior players were letting him down. He flat-batted the question but, just in case anybody was still wondering, it has surely now been answered beyond all doubt. Arsenal have racked up a varied collection of new lows in recent years but this woeful defeat to Burnley, along with the inexcusable idiocy that precipitated it, surely caps the lot.
Granit Xhaka’s rehabilitation since falling out with the home fans last season was one of the early success stories of the Arteta era. After 58 minutes of a tense, scruffy match that reflected the fact team and manager are under mounting pressure, Xhaka threw Arteta’s trust back in his face. He had just fouled a breaking Dwight McNeil and it was hard to tell what enraged him during the ensuing melee, in which he squared up to Ashley Westwood. A VAR check showed conclusively, though, that he had grabbed Westwood around the throat and a red card was in little doubt once Graham Scott had checked his pitchside monitor.
