Santi Cazorla’s return will get the best out of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez – but it’s too late to save Arsenal’s season

Triple threat: Cazorla is back to conduct Arsenal's orchestra but at a time when there is little to fight for
Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
James Benge29 April 2016

When Santi Cazorla ended the 1-1 draw at Norwich in late November “on one leg” Arsenal were two points off the top of the table.

Should he return on Saturday against the same opponents he will find his side 12 points behind and out of the title race. Delay that comeback any further and the situation could be all the more dire at the Emirates, with perhaps even their Champions League participation on the line.

Asked on Friday whether his side had been worse for the absence of the 31-year-old, Wenger was remarkably evasive.

“We have gone through a difficult spell but the quality of our game has come back in the last month and a half.

“We didn’t make the maximum from home games against lower table teams but we analyse that well and know it is not down to the quality of our game.”

A tacit acceptance then.

It is hardly a shock that Arsenal have struggled so badly in his absence. They have no player like him no matter how hard Aaron Ramsey tries, but the travails of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil in Cazorla’s absence have been alarming.

Perhaps not so much when separated, Ozil enjoyed a remarkable December when both Sanchez and Cazorla were out injured, registering five assists in as many games, but when Wenger’s star trio is shorn of its Spaniard the remaining duo are far from dynamic.

That is perhaps not all that surprising. Sanchez and Ozil have wildly differing styles of play, one a bundle of energy, dynamism and direct running, the other languid almost to a flaw, patient and precise. When the pair are left to dictate Arsenal’s rhythm on the pitch there is an almost pervading confusion over how the team will play.

Will it be the pace and drive of Sanchez, Iwobi and Welbeck? Or the patient, possession game of Ozil and Giroud? When one of these approaches takes precedent Arsenal can still flourish, as they did in a win away to Everton that was more impressive than their hosts dire form at Goodison Park can suggest. But too often Arsenal are caught between two poles and, perhaps most surprisingly for an Wenger side, lack identity.

The numbers bear that out. With Ozil and Sanchez together, and without Cazorla, Arsenal win, draw and lose a third of their games. Those 15 games, entirely since the turn of 2016 have rarely seen a convincing performance from start to finish whilst the victories have come against the likes of West Brom, Bournemouth and a Watford side as poor as any to appear at the Emirates this season.

With the trio of Cazorla, Ozil and Sanchez together from the start Arsenal’s win record is more impressive, if not entirely exceptional, at 53 per cent. Only two games were lost in the league and the defeats to Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos were hardly those where the blame might be pinned on the Gunners attacking play.

Cazorla’s return provides Wenger with the bridge between the two competing styles of Ozil and Sanchez. The Spaniard, playing deep alongside Francis Coquelin, can ensure his side keep the ball and build slowly. But equally so many of Arsenal’s most impressive performances this season have seen Cazorla pull the strings, unleashing a string of devastating counters that tore the likes of Manchester United to ribbons.

An experiment for a trip to Manchester City placing Cazorla alongside Coquelin at the base of midfield finally allowed Wenger to find space in which all three of his star outfield names could function. But the system was unable to survive the Spaniard’s absence, and Arsenal trundled along for four months trying to force the square pegs of Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini into a formation that was no longer supporting Ozil or Sanchez.

How Arsenal fell out of the title race

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When Cazorla finally returns to the starting line-up, and after such a lengthy absence it might be some time before that happens, Arsenal may finally rediscover the “automatisms” that made them such formidable opponents in 2015.

That it will come far too late to save Arsenal’s season is proof of just how much this side have missed their diminutive maestro.

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