Granit Xhaka and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg are no strangers to having midfield battles, with the pair locking horns multiple times whilst at Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.
Xhaka left Arsenal just over a year ago and has since enjoyed great success with Bayer Leverkusen, picking up trophies in his first season with the club. Hojbjerg departed Tottenham this summer, heading for what he hopes is more prominence at Marseille and a fight for titles.
There was an opportunity for old Arsenal-Tottenham rivalries to get another airing as Denmark played Switzerland on Thursday evening.
The two midfielders were big features in the game, with Xhaka getting sent off for a second yellow card after 87 minutes, and Hojbjerg then scoring Denmark’s second, to make the game safe, in injury time.
Xhaka was furious after the match. It was an altercation with Hojbjerg which saw him sent off, and then he had to see his rival score.
Quoted by Swiss website 4-4-2 after his side’s 2-0 defeat, Xhaka accused the Danes as showing no respect during the game: “In football, the word respect is very important. But what the Danes showed today has nothing to do with respect. We behaved in an exemplary manner in the first half. When a Danish player was on the ground, we kicked the ball out. In the second half, the Danish players see that Breel Embolo is on the ground. But they don’t play the ball out and we concede the 0:1. The rest is history.”
Xhaka was shown a yellow card for his protests after Denmark captain Hojbjerg didn’t tell his team to kick the ball out of play, and a few minutes later he was cautioned again after a late challenge on midfielder.
You can take the boy out of the North London Derby, but you can’t take the North London Derby out of the boy.
