Arsenal: Why sign “next” Santi Cazorla when we can have the original?

Arsenal are supposedly still looking at Carlos Soler, who is being called the “next” Santi Cazorla, but why not just bring back the original?

The one transfer rumor that keeps tripping me up this summer is Arsenal‘s link to Carlos Soler. My one sentence on him: Way too much money for someone I’d take for about half the price. Right? I mean how can the guy go for £36m. That’s what Dani Ceballos cost and he shows a hell of a lot more upward trajectory than Soler.

That said, Soler looks like a good talent. I just don’t know if calling him the next Santi Cazorla is the best and most accurate representation of him. Not least of all because we don’t need to sign “the next” Cazorla when the original Cazorla can come back for free.

Santi Cazorla may be 35-years-old, but he is still crushing it over in Spain, the same way that he crushed it over here in England. There has been zero drop off from the little magician since he left, which makes me think there would be zero drop off if he came back.

Which, by the way, would be free, long overdue, and the exact thing we need in this midfield. Think about Cazorla, Granit Xhaka, and Thomas Partey in the same midfield? Dreams being made.

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If you turn that around and put Soler in there instead of Cazorla, I’m not as enthusiastic. Maybe Soler can blossom and bloom, but for £36m less, we can get the original Cazorla with all the original production and we don’t have to indebt ourselves to an unproven project.

Let’s take a brief moment to allow me to say that I really do like Soler. I just don’t see him as a solution. If we want him to be a solution, he needs time to get there. And in the time it takes him to get there, we can let Cazorla play out his dream Arsenal exit, leading us to consecutive Premier League titles.

I’m a dreamer.

Back to reality, we do have to be smart about how we spend money. Even if we sell some money-makers, we can’t just spend £80m on the midfield and think that we can still address our problems elsewhere.

If this midfield is in need of two people, buy one and trust Cazorla to be the other. Don’t forget that we still have Matteo Guendouzi.