Arsenal: Dani Ceballos future unclear, and that’s perfectly fine

Arsenal brought in Dani Ceballos to be a solution to their creative woes, but in less than half a season, it’s safe to say the future is still unclear.

It’s been pretty clear for awhile now that the answer to this question is a clear and resounding ‘no,’ but perhaps there’s a bit more to it than that after all. Arsenal have been utilizing Dani Ceballos to be the creative midfielder that Unai Emery really wants, since it’s clearly not Mesut Ozil.

Ceballos carries a rapport with Emery, he’s Spanish like Emery, he’s hard working, just like Emery wants, and Emery gave Ceballos exactly what he wanted—a chance to play. Which he was far from getting at Real Madrid.

But throughout the course of just a few months, it’s become apparent that while no one knows what Ceballos is going to do in the future, that might be perfectly fine, because as we see with a lot of positions here at the club (*cough* defense *cough*), in the transition stages, sometimes you have to focus on the now and not think too much about the future.

When Ceballos first arrived, we were all thrilled to think that he could stay around past the one-year loan, despite the muddled rumors, and those rumors haven’t gotten any less muddled.

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The latest is that Ceballos is actually holding talks with Real Madrid about a permanent move to the Emirates. This coming mere days after it was reported that he was deadset on going back to Real Madrid.

Which just goes to show that no one really knows anything.

But for now, we have to establish what we even want from him in the first place. He hasn’t caught on, though he’s showed excellent potential, and he needs to sort himself out before we even start worrying about what’s going on in the rumor mill, which, spoiler alert, is never going to be accurate. They’re all shots in the dark.

There’s no point worrying about Ceballos anymore, honestly. Let come what may. If he stays, that’s great, he’ll have earned it. If he goes back to Madrid, that’s fine, we’ll invest in other options.

I get the impulse to want to know now, I was a part of that impulse. But time will answer these questions and nothing else, so no point juggling all these conflicting reports trying to figure out what’s going on.