{"id":359419,"date":"2025-12-20T01:03:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T01:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/359419\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T01:03:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T01:03:49","slug":"sunderland-granit-xhaka-raised-the-standards-at-club-says-dan-ballard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/359419\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunderland: Granit Xhaka raised the standards at club, says Dan Ballard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Ballard says Granit Xhaka’s arrival raised the standards at Sunderland<\/a> to help them compete in the top half of the Premier League.<\/p>\n

Switzerland midfielder Xhaka was one of several summer signings following the club’s promotion from the Championship through the play-offs.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old, who joined from Bayer Leverkusen, was installed as captain, and his leadership has had a clear impact on a side that has settled right back into life in the top flight.<\/p>\n

Sunderland<\/a> are currently eighth in the table – just two points off the top four – following their 1-0 derby win against Newcastle<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Centre-back and Northern Ireland international Ballard, who was in Arsenal<\/a>‘s academy when Xhaka was at the Gunners, told Football Focus: “He’s an amazing guy. <\/p>\n

“I was a bit surprised when we signed him. I wasn’t sure what it’d be like. I didn’t think one person could affect the team the way he’s done. <\/p>\n

“From minute one, I think the standards really rose because he does everything to 100%. <\/p>\n

“It’s kind of like, well if he’s got that amazing career and he’s still doing everything perfectly, why wouldn’t we? And I think it just sort of lifted the standards.”<\/p>\n

Sunderland<\/a> have won seven and lost just four of their 16 league games, and Ballard attributed Xhaka’s influence to that winning mentality.<\/p>\n

“I mean literally everything, from the work in the gym to the standards, he puts out on the training pitch,” added the 26-year-old.<\/p>\n

“You know we’ve just been outside, it can be cold and wet and but he’s 100% focused and giving everything in training. <\/p>\n

“So when some of us boys may be not putting that work in and you see him doing it, it’s unacceptable for us. <\/p>\n

“If he’s doing it, he’s won titles and played hundreds of games in the Premier League. Then why shouldn’t we? It’s lifted everyone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Ballard says Granit Xhaka’s arrival raised the standards at Sunderland to help them compete in the top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-359419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}