The thing about Santi is he was a fine wine. CM wasn’t by any means his natural position, yet as his athleticism began to dwindle slightly, his technical ability allowed him to take to the role like a duck to water.
Santi’s a strange one, any player with that kind of ability on the ball should absolutely be in the final third of the pitch. Perhaps an aging Mata might find himself in the same situation.
He played all over the MF for Malaga, though from what some of their fans told me that was out of necessity. Great players will always find a position and a way into a team, I’m a firm believer of that.
Spot on. He matured into that deeper role using his experience in this league. You cant really buy that. His loss as a vital cog in midfield has been noticable. The change of formation was much needed to bring out the best in other players to make us more of a unit.
Watched Sampdoria last night, had money on them to beat Fiorentina away even tho they won I’m never doing that again lol but anyway I’m really starting to love this little guy, partly because I think he’s the type of player we’re missing in midfield at the moment.
That said Torreira’s not a like for like replacement for Santi, he’s probably closer to a defensive version of Verratti so would one of the mods be able to move these two post to the young talents thread.
We won’t get a like for like replacement anyway. Cazorla has an unique skillset for a centre midfielder partially because of his experience on other positions. I think we’d benefit more with a defensive version of Verrati on the long term btw.
As much as we need a replacement for Cazorla, I don’t think it’s anywhere near the top of the list of Wenger’s priorities.
He will need to replace Sanchez and Ozil, as well as a winger, and will need at least one top quality CB and probably a GK, so the Cazorla position will be left, like it has been, last season and this.
I suppose there was. So many times Isco was benched for prolonged period either to accomodate Di Maria/James Rodriguez/ n other attacking players Madrid had.
Plus he started off as a winger for Malaga, so naturally he was not going to replace Ronaldo & big money Bale.
So if Wenger had swooped in and offered big money, Real might have been tempted.
But yeah the ship has indeed sailed. far away.
Gosh I wanted him in Arsenal colors so much.