Arsenal: Latest Santi Cazorla development utterly gut-wrenching

Arsenal have announced their 25-man squad for the Premier League season ahead. Santi Cazorla is not a part of it. What a gut-wrenching development.

Arsenal are a far better team when Santi Cazorla is on the pitch. His diminutive style is the centre of the park is deceptively effective. The ability that he has to distribute off of either flank, his quick thinking, sharp, incisive vision and exquisite technique means that he can provide the foundation for sweeping attacking moves with great succession and tempo.

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It is in the fluidity of their passing that Arsenal miss Cazorla the most. And the statistics support such a claim. As of December 1st, 2016, which is shortly after it was announced that Cazorla would miss the remainder of last season with a knee injury, dating back to the start of the 2014/15 season, in the Premier League, the Gunners maintained a win percentage of 65.5% with the Spaniard in the side. Without him, that figure dropped to an alarming 38.9%.

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While win percentage is a team stat and it would belie the truth to justify the importance of an individual with a metric that judges the collective, such is the substantial difference between the two, that there is an element of accuracy that must be respected and listened to: Cazorla is vital to the fate of this team.

And that is why the recent news that he has not been included in the 25-man Premier League squad for the upcoming campaign is so concerning. It could be argued that, alongside perhaps Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Laurent Koscielny, Cazorla is Arsenal’s most important and influential player. The absence of such an integral piece of the team is a massive, detrimental blow to the fate of an already unravelling season.

Cazorla is an injury prone player and there have been complications with his latest period of recovery, and perhaps there is sufficient reason to aim criticism at Arsene Wenger for failing to provide an alternative to ensure that the fluidity and rhythm that the Spaniard renders is not lost.

But, now that the deadline has passed, such criticism is by the by. No player can now be brought in until January and Arsenal will, as they tried and failed to do during the closing months of last season, have attempt to replicate the calming, assuring influence of Cazorla in other ways.

The midfield pairing of Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey has promise, though they were somewhat dismantled by Liverpool on Sunday. But neither are the cute passers that Cazorla is. Ramsey is a driver, an instigator, a surger who relies on his athleticism more than his passing. And while Xhaka does have the range of passing to replicate Cazorla’s influence, he lacks the agility and the balance to do so higher up the pitch, performing best in a ‘quarterback’ role, often leaving gaping spaces between midfield and attack.

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When Cazorla will return is not yet known. There had been reports that he was targeting October. However, even if he is available for selection as early as that, now that he has been left out of the 25-man Premier League squad, he will not be able to feature in the league until January. That is an utterly gut-wrenching development and I’d be surprised if we see him before the new year.