Arsenal: Dani Ceballos permanent deal a two-way street

Arsenal have to figure out what’s going on with Dani Ceballos, and how they can win him over, but we also have to consider if we even want to win him over.

When Dani Ceballos first came to Arsenal, the immediate—and I mean immediate—response was doom and gloom that we weren’t going to be able to keep him. Real Madrid just wanted to help him get his feet underneath him and then snatch him right back. He was that good, right? And Ceballos ensuring that no purchase clause was added? Troublesome.

The goal became convincing him that he wanted to be at the club. Which quickly proved difficult, as the club proved to have somewhere between ‘zero’ and ‘very little’ creativity, which is what Ceballos was here to do.

It’s always hard to ask one guy to make such an impact on a club, but honestly, it didn’t seem like that big of an ask. The resources are there for creativity to be a major hit, all we need are consistent chances, and Ceballos has no provided that.

Suddenly, with his own struggles, it suddenly became more likely that he would be staying. Rumors linked him to a prolonged stay and recently, it’s even being said that Ceballos has refused to go back to Real Madrid.

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Ceballos said earlier that he came to the Emirates to actually play, which he wasn’t getting at Real Madrid. And maybe we had too high of an initial takeaway from him, thanks in part to his brilliance at Burnley, but since then, the pendulum has swung all the way back in the Gunners corner.

Now we have to ask if Ceballos is even someone we would want for the long term, as he really hasn’t caught on, the glimpses of brilliance have grown less and less frequent, and Real Madrid’s interest in him is waning as well.

Obviously there’s still time for Ceballos to find the pendulum back on his side, and we’ve seen that he is capable of doing it, but this is no longer a one-way street. This is absolutely a two-way deal that needs to be evaluated every step of the way lest we stumble into something we don’t really want after all.

I have faith in Ceballos, but there have been plenty of other people I had faith in that didn’t pan out either. Time is ticking, as it often is.