Transfer News: Granit Xhaka set to sign for Sunderland!

Photo by Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images

After a week or two of speculation linking 32-year-old Granit Xhaka with Sunderland, it looks as though – barring any last-minute disasters – the former Arsenal captain and current Swiss national team captain will sign a three-year contract at the Stadium of Light.

The past couple of weeks have seen a bit of posturing from Xhaka’s current club, Bundesliga runners-up Bayer Leverkusen. Understandably so – the club lost manager Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid, and have seen a raft of players seemingly keen

to move on.

Xhaka made it known that he was keen to move to Sunderland, but remained professional, training and playing in a pre-season friendly on Sunday for Leverkusen, which seemed to indicate that the move wasn’t too close to reaching a conclusion.

European transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, however, posted a ‘Here We Go’, Xhaka to Sunderland tweet late on Monday morning, and all of a sudden, things snowballed. The clubs had agreed a fee, Xhaka had agreed a contract, and he flew in last night to conclude the medical and seal the deal today.

Photo by Jörg Schüler/Bayer 04 Leverkusen via Getty Images

Make no mistake about it – this is a massive, massive coup for Sunderland.

This is a player who’s played at the top level of European football for 15 years. He played almost 300 games for Arsenal, and captained the club too, while playing 99 games for Leverkusen over the past two seasons.

A left footed central midfielder, Xhaka’s got 137 caps for Switzerland, is still a regular in their team, and was named 16th in the Ballon D’or list last season.

Have we made a bigger signing in the past 50 years? I seriously doubt it. Stefan Schwarz maybe? That would be the closest, but this seems much more significant.

What it does show is that Kyril Louis Dreyfus and the board genuinely mean business. To sign a world-class player, who’d get into pretty much every other Premier League team, is astounding, and all credit to them.

There’s been talk of KLD attracting his compatriot with a 10 year plan – what that looks like, and if that’s confined to Sunderland, we don’t know.

What we do know, however, is this is a move that will really hammer home to the footballing world that Sunderland mean business. We’re not prepared to meekly accept our fate and build for next season’s almost inevitable championship campaign, as most recently promoted teams have done.

We’re giving it a red hot go – and the message it sends out to other potential big-name signings is strong too. If it’s good enough for Granit Xhaka...

Xhaka in action for Switzerland

The other big plus side to this is the addition of footballing and Premier League experience. We talked on this morning’s podcast (recorded before the news of Xhaka’s imminent arrival broke) about the need for experience and leadership, and this transfer provides it in spades.

To get him in almost three weeks before the season starts is important too. We had a flurry of early arrivals, but things had seemed to slow down. This will hopefully kickstart our transfer activity again, and if we can add 3-4 more players in those key positions we’re evidently looking at – goalkeeper, central defence and striker – we can really approach the season full of confidence.

This could be a pivotal transfer in our history – that’s how big it is. And all credit to the club. It would have been easy for them to take a long-term view of this coming season, bank the money and build again next year.

And look, no one thinks this automatically guarantees us staying up this season. It’s a tough, tough league – one that’s 10 times tougher than the last time we were in it.

But the impression so far is that we’re truly building on this notion of being an exciting place to come and play football. We don’t want to begin the season as we began out last top flight campaign – telling the world we’re in a relegation battle from the off.

This is different.

And on the field and off the field, Granit Xhaka’s impending arrival massively underlines that.

Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

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