IN the cult, you are not permitted to say anything negative about anybody who has ever worn the famous red and white, so forgive me if you can, for I have sinned.

I confess I have had negative feelings towards Granit Xhaka. And not just once have I said or written something critical about this man.

Call me a traitor, unfaithful, but there were times when the man felt like he was almost deliberately on a quest to drive us insane, ruining weekends with rash challenges, misplaced passes and peculiar red cards.

I know of others who thought the same. Now they pretend they didn’t but the streets remember. Granit Xhaka was the loose cannon capable of puncturing a winning performance out of nowhere.

He was a wet Sunday. A hangover. A ghost, and a rascal. He was barracked by his own supporters, a walking symbol of the late-Wenger malaise. Oh, and do not forget the stupid penalties this man has conceded over all of his time here.

And yet now we come to a day which never seemed it would ever arrive.

All of a sudden, he is perhaps going to be playing his final match for Arsenal this weekend against Wolves.

And far from feeling like we are finally free, it instead feels like we are losing a kindly uncle, who was just misunderstood all these years. Now he’s lovable.

There’s even a terrace song about him, and it will be strange to see him in any other club’s shirt.

Mikel Arteta, of course, deserves great credit. His decision to play Xhaka higher up the pitch in what looks like his final season was a masterstroke. This meant if he did start doing Granit Xhaka things, then it would be a long way from Arsenal’s goal and there would be a chance for the team to recover.

He had slipped back too many yards when he fatefully began to wind the Liverpool crowd up at Anfield in the season-changing 2-2 draw. It turned out to be a strangely rare bumble in a season where he was positive and productive. He had transformed into a fatherly presence over a young team trying to do the impossible but at least having fun as they attempted it. His role in glueing it all together was now a point of celebration.

He smiled more, he scored more.

So, it will be strange not worrying about his calamities.

But now it will also be strange not seeing him exchange smart passes with Odegaard, Saka and Martinelli.

Good luck ol’ boy.