Granit Xhaka thinks Arsenal have grown together and admits he was desperate to return from injury to help the team as soon as possible.

Midfielder Granit Xhaka suffered the first serious injury of his Arsenal career earlier this season.

The 29-year-old had never previously missed a month of action with the Gunners, but he was initially ruled for three months following his ligament injury in September.

Xhaka has now been back in action for a while, making seven appearances since his return, so it’s easy to forget that the initial timetable had him out until now.

The Swiss international was supposed to return to action in early January, but he ended up rejoining the team in early December.

Xhaka says that he just wanted to be back playing full matches as soon as possible.

“I didn’t need to slowly approach,” Xhaka told Nau.ch. “I wanted to help the team immediately. My thoughts revolved around the game, no longer around the knee.”

Arsenal’s form has obviously improved over that last month, with the robbery against Manchester City the only blip in terms of results from December 11th onwards.

Xhaka believes we’re simply seeing the results of the team’s hard work behind the scenes.

“There’s hard work behind it. I’m not surprised, we train very well. We have grown as a team and are also winning the close matches again.”

Despite the 2-1 defeat to Manchester City in very unfortunate circumstances, Arsenal have the chance to underline their progress in the upcoming matches against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Hopefully, we’ll continue to see the fruits of the players’ labour.