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<\/p>\nXhaka was taken off by Unai Emery towards the end of Sunday\u2019s draw, which saw the hosts throw away a 2-0 lead in the London derby.<\/p>\n
With the Emirates Stadium\u2019s jeers ringing in his ears, the Switzerland midfielder reacted angrily, ripping off his shirt and marching straight down the tunnel.<\/p>\n
Before leaving, however, he had a final message for fans, cupping his ear and mouthing \u201cf*ck off\u201d at the stands.<\/p>\n
Four days after the incident, Xhaka has finally issued a statement published on Arsenal\u2019s Twitter account.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter taking some time to reflect on what happened on Sunday afternoon, I would like to give you an explanation rather than just a quick response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scenes that took place around my substitution have moved me deeply. I love this club and have always given 100 per cent on and off the pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy feeling of not being understood by fans, and repeated abusive comments at matches and on social media over the last weeks and months have hurt me deeply.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have said things like \u2018We will break your legs,\u2019 \u2018kill your wife\u2019 and \u2018wish that your daughter gets cancer\u2019. That has stirred me up and I reached boiling point when I felt the rejection in the stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this situation I let myself be carried away and reacted in a way that disrespected the group of fans that support our club, our team and myself with positive energy. That has not been my intention and I\u2019m sorry if it\u2019s what people thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wish is that we get back to a place of mutual respect, remembering why we fell in love with the game in the first place. Let\u2019s move positively forward together,\u201d Xhaka said.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal captain, Granit Xhaka, has explained why he lashed out at fans, following his substitution against Crystal Palace. Xhaka was taken off by Unai Emery towards the end of Sunday\u2019s draw, which saw the hosts throw away a 2-0 lead in the London derby. With the Emirates Stadium\u2019s jeers ringing in his ears, the Switzerland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[2658,4427,13511],"class_list":["post-164606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-a","tag-arsenal","tag-xhaka"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/152650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}