Santi Cazorla

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The whole lot of them today will have the week off until Sunderland in 7 days time, with the exception of Elneny I guess.

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Jacks done 90 mins. Time for a re-call.

I think 90 minutes itself is a win. If he can keep playing 90 minute games then the loan will be a success imo. He’s rebuilding and finding his feet after a serious injury lay off, can’t fault him for that.

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It’s a little worrying how reliant we are on a 32 year old, but I suppose we all knew this before a ball was kicked this season.

I think he’s somewhat a unique case here. He just needs to be monitored week by week I feel, we can’t expect him to play every game this season.

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Couldn’t agree more, we probably can’t expect him to play more than 30 league games its just a shame for us the 8-10 he misses could se us drop a savage amount of points.

Cazorla is a pretty important part to the team, but us not being able to replace his creativity is also a sign this squad is imbalanced. We have got zero creative players outside of Cazorla and Ozil or youngsters who are not ready for it (Reine-Adelaide).

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Xhaka and Ramsey were also missing

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Case in point. Especially Ramsey.

Very hard to replace creative players like Cazorla.
Even Spain’s reserves have dried up a bit in this current generation.

5 years ago Spain had an amazing bunch - Silva, Iniesta, Xavi, Cazorla, Mata, Fabregas.

Jack is probably the best like for like replacement we actually have at Arsenal and he’s at Bournemouth.

They’re nothing alike, the only similarity is that they’re both short and technically gifted.

Yeah they aren’t really alike probably the wrong choice of words by myself but Wilshere would give us some sort of creativity in the centre of the park is what I was getting at.

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I’m reading that he won’t be fit for tomorrow. Makes me a lot less confident. I dont really trust Elneny to be as creative, and Xhaka is a red card waiting to happen tomorrow :neutral_face:

Edit: or even worse…Ramsey :open_mouth:

He needs to make at least the bench.

Sometimes the stats don’t lie. Our win percentage drops massively when he doesn’t play. We really don’t have an answer as a backup either we’ve got nobody who can do what Santi does the way he does it. Tbf there aren’t a lot of players in the world that can do it, but still it’s a major issue in the squad imo.

Maybe that’s what Wilshere is learning to do at Bournemouth

Considering hes on the cusp of turning 32 we’d want to start finding some solutions.

I hope so.

Yes and no. Giggs and Scholes played into their late 30’s on title winning teams. It’s not like Santi relies on his pace.

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