Arsenal: Dani Ceballos prompting a decision one way or another

Dani Ceballos continues to thrive at Arsenal, and in no time flat, he has forced the club to face the music and make a crucial decision one way or another.

Arsenal‘s paltry effort in the North London Derby didn’t breed a lot of stand-out performers, but it did bring us a very familiar one—Dani Ceballos. Yet again the Spaniard was on top of his game, he was driving play in a very open midfield and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that one way or another, something has to happen.

We kind of knew this already, though, didn’t we? Arsenal’s midfield was devoid of a pivot midfielder who could preferably sit in between Granit Xhaka and, oh I dunno, Thomas Partey, and be the guy that connects the defense to the attack.

Plenty have tried, none have succeeded. The last truly successful pivot we had was Aaron Ramsey, then Santi Cazorla, but for Ramsey, health was always a concern. We tried to replace him with Ceballos which, better late than never (?), is proving quite astute.

We’ve talked at length about what the options are with Ceballos going forward. The loan is coming to an end, the price tag feels prohibitive, and a second-year loan seems ideal, but not a lot of ground is being made towards that end.

Regardless of what happens, Dani Ceballos has 100% required Arsenal to make a decision about this position. While Partey looks almost like a sure-fire deal, and a brilliant one at that, he really isn’t the pivot midfielder that we need.

He’s the defensive midfielder that we need. Because this midfield needs a lot.

I’ll tell you this, though, if we go into next season with a Xhaka/Partey midfield, I’ll be happy, but I have no doubts that we will still feel a lacking third option. Maybe, given the sturdiness of that midfield base, we can rely on Joe Willock to be the pivot. I wouldn’t be opposed to that, necessarily.

But whatever the case, something has to be done to address the midfield pivot situation. More and more Ceballos is looking like the guy, but if he isn’t, then it has to be someone. I don’t even care who as long as we address the problem.

Hopefully, it already was being addressed. It’s not exactly a secret that we need help with this midfield. Half of it is addressed with Partey, now we just need the other half.