What Granit Xhaka did during Albert Sambi Lokonga's Arsenal masterclass vs Aston Villa
You would have forgiven Albert Sambi Lokonga if he had gone into his shell a bit against Aston Villa.
The Belgian, who only turned 22 on the day of Friday night's victory had had probably his worst display in an Arsenal shirt just four days prior after replacing Bukayo Saka in the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace.
As the urgency for an equaliser increased the Emirates crowd began to turn on the young midfielder for his lack of ambition in possession. At such a young age this can be the kind of traumatic experience that scars a player for years to come.
Not Sambi though.
Key to the Belgian's excellent play was his vastly improved ball work.
Against Palace, Lokonga's passing success rate was 98%, which might suggest that he actually had quite a good game. However, just six of his 44 passes on the night went forwards.
Instead the ball was constantly circulated out to either Takehiro Tomiyasu or Kieran Tierney as Arsenal struggled to create many chances.
This was vastly improved against Aston Villa as the 22-year-old played 16 of his 43 passes forward and a quarter of those went into the final third.
This enabled the excellent offensive performance of Nuno Tavares on the night, while Lokonga linked up with man of the match Emile Smith Rowe more than any other player on the pitch.
It was the kind of display that could well worry Granit Xhaka who revealed that he was watching on at the Emirates with an Instagram story captioned "let's go Arsenal".
Sambi arguably offered an improvement on the Swiss international's interpretation of the left sided central midfield birth, combining well with Tavares as mentioned, but also providing more of a central presence to enable more verticality in the Gunners' build up.
This more infield positioning meant that Arsenal were also able to avoid the problem of isolating Thomas Partey, which often happens when Xhaka drops back into the left side of defence to cover the advancing runs of the left back.
The Ghanaian put in a much improved performance as a result that was topped off by his first goal in a Gunners shirt.
Sambi's display was so good that he was even among the players that Mikel Arteta singled out when discussing who he thought the man of the match was in the win.
"If you ask about Thomas, about Sambi, about Nuno as well about the central defenders, anybody, I think the way they played it was high, high level," said the Spaniard.