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Granit Xhaka turns his back on Bayer Leverkusen after two seasons.
Picture: AFC Sunderland/X
The move is now complete: Granit Xhaka is leaving Bayer Leverkusen despite his current contract and signing a three-year deal with Premier League promotion contenders Sunderland.
After a long back and forth, Granit Xhaka's move has been finalized. The national team captain is leaving Bayer Leverkusen early and returning to England, where Xhaka has signed for newly promoted Sunderland.
The 32-year-old is thus returning to the Premier League after two years in the Bundesliga with Leverkusen, where he already played for Arsenal between 2016 and 2023.
"This is not just any club. This is Sunderland. I've followed the journey of this team, now I'm ready to write the next chapter," said Xhaka in a video shared by Sunderland.
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Xhaka had been revealing his desire for a career change for some time. There was talk of a possible move to Saudi Arabia, then the tabloids were not the only ones to report that the transfer to AC Milan was practically perfect. However, the parties involved failed to reach an agreement either in the Persian Gulf or in Lombardy.
So now it's time for Xhaka to leave Leverkusen, who led him to his (first) league and cup double the season before last - and where he would have had a three-year contract. Xhaka played for Leverkusen for two years; he returned to the Bundesliga, where he had previously also played for Borussia Mönchengladbach, from London after a seven-and-a-half-year stint at Arsenal.
Now Xhaka is going the other way again - surprisingly to a club with whom he is highly unlikely to be playing for the top places. Quite the opposite: in the last two years, all three clubs promoted to the top flight in England have been relegated after just one season.
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Following their promotion, Sunderland are back in England's top flight for the first time in eight years. Between 2018 and 2022, the club from the north-east of England was even in the third tier. The aim now is to do everything in their power to prevent direct relegation.
