OTD: XHAKA SIGNED

A year ago today, Sunderland completed the signing of Granit Xhaka from Bayer Leverkusen. It would be a signing that would not only be a statement of intent to the rest of the league, but one that we can now say will go down as the most important in our history.

Granit started his career at Basel, where he was born back in 1992. Having joined their academy in 2003, he would make his debut seven years later at the age of just 17, coming on as a substitute in a Champions League Qualifier against Hungarian side Debrecen and scoring to earn his side a 2-0 victory in the first leg. Xhaka would play 29 games in all competitions that season before playing 38 in the 2011/12 season which attracted interest from Germany.

It would be Borussia Monchengladbach that would secure the Swiss midfielders’ signature, penning a five-year deal at the club. He would stay for just four of those five years though, making the move to North London with Arsenal where he played a large portion of his career, spending seven years at the Emirates including becoming captain for the 2019/20 season.

He was maybe more remembered by the wider English audience for him being a bit of a hot head (quite ironic really given how important his leadership is here) including a rather infamous moment where he was booed off by his own fans in a game against Crystal Palace in 2019. He responded by sarcastically gesturing towards the fans and even visibly saying “f*ck off” twice angrily as fans jeered him. He then removed his shirt before walking straight down the tunnel, not exactly the scenes you want to see really from your skipper.

This resulted in him being stripped of the captaincy just a month and a week after being instated. He would then rarely feature and it was expected he would be moved on. However, incoming manager Mikel Arteta was willing to give Granit another chance. He would become a key player under Arteta and seemed to put any attitude issues in the past.

He finally moved on though in 2023, joining Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen for around £21 million. He would be a part of Die Schwartzrotens’ invincible season, winning both the DFB-Pokal and the Bundesliga, as well as being runners-up in the Europa League. After another solid season in 24/25, it came as a surprise to the whole footballing world when journalists where reporting newly-promoted Sunderland were interested in the Swiss.

Many laughed it off as rubbish (including a good few Mackems) but the rumour seemed to have something to it and after weeks of different outlets telling different stories, Sunderland reached an agreement with Bayer Leverkusen, and Granit Xhaka was on his way to Wearside.

He would take over from Dan Neil as captain, arriving for a steal of just £13 million. His impact on the pitch and off it was a huge factor in securing European football, and when he had a spell out of the side it showed just how important he was. Had he not signed who knows what league we’d have been playing this year but we absolutely would not have ended up as high as we did. With his future seemingly resolved, lets hope Granit can continue to help the club on its upward trajectory.