Arsenal: Let’s turn Santi Cazorla’s goodbye into a hello

Arsenal don’t appear to be in any great hurry to part with Unai Emery, but when the time comes, why not line up Santi Cazorla and turn his goodbye into a hello?

The whole managerial carousel of the English Premier League is something I am constantly grateful that Arsenal aren’t engaged in. They don’t rotate managers every couple of years, they don’t pick out the same names from the same managerial pool.

Even when they were lining up Mikel Arteta, or Patrick Vieira, I was thrilled, because I want to bring in a fresh new face with fresh new ideas that haven’t been spilled all over every European pitch. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

I’ll take it even one step further now. If we’re sticking with Unai Emery for another couple of years, why not bring back everyone’s favorite, Santi Cazorla, and line him up as an assistant, with the perspective of taking over when the time comes?

I know. Freddie Ljunberg is already there. But while we all love Freddie too, the fresh memories of Santi Cazorla have me fantasizing about a future where the Spaniard’s smiling face is as close to the pitch as can possibly be.

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Maybe that’s as an assistant, I don’t care, but I just want Santi Cazorla’s desire for a goodbye to turn full circle and turn into a long-term hello.

Given that he has no prior managerial experience, we can’t begin to discuss what kind of style he would bring to the club, but it wouldn’t surprising to see a potential managerial or coaching outlook take the same form as his playing outlook. Which was pretty much create, play hard, and enjoy yourselves. Because if you don’t enjoy yourself what’s the point?

Those are three things that the Gunners are struggling with significantly. Creating? Don’t make me laugh. Enjoying themselves? That’s rich. There’s so little of either one of those going on at the club recently. And maybe some of them play hard, as it’s part of their ethos as players, but overall, the three things that Cazorla embodied most are some of the weaknesses of the club currently. Two of the biggest, in fact.

I’m not saying appoint him as a manager tomorrow (although would that be so bad…?), but age has nothing to do with an effective analytical mind. The Bundesliga has shown the world that. Cazorla could be the guy the lift the club… just not as a player.