It’s been a feature of recent discussion about the club that a choice has to be made about whether or not to play Santi Cazorla or Mesut Ozil.
The Spaniard has been in superb form recently, while Ozil has just returned from injury and is looking to make his mark in the team again.
Indeed, there’s no reason why both can’t play at the same time, and Arsenal captain Mikel Arteta is delighted to have such fantastic options.
In his captain’s notes for the official match day programme, he said, “Having been without him for so long, it was great to see Mesut make his comeback against Stoke and then scoring against Brighton on Sunday.
“I think he is probably the best player in our squad at giving the final ball to the player up front.
“But then, it is also true that when Santi has played in the No 10 role recently he been fantastic – particularly in the win against Manchester City.”
And Arteta puts that down to the increased responsibility he’s been given.
“When he was moved centrally a few months ago, his form increased by 100 per cent. He likes to get involved in the game, he has a good range of passing and he creates opportunities – and his work rate is very important as well.
“We saw that at the Etihad, where he was chasing back, winning the ball and retaining possession under pressure in tight areas. That is very important in big games.”
If having Ozil and Cazorla is a problem, then we’re pretty much ok with that.
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The official match day programme is now available for Android as well as iOs. Check it out on the Google Play store.
really thought this was going to have something to do with eligibility to vote in the general elections. disappointed
I think with the options we have now, we can storm into top three!! COYG! who can score?? ..everyone.
Cesc who?
yeah who? I think now we can understand why Wenger wasn’t poised to sign him up. who would you line up? all three of them?
Yeah, can we just stick with Fabregas, please.
On current form, no.
I meant stick to calling him Fabregas, as he is no longer an Arsenal player.
Play em both. Fuck it, we can’t defend anyway so play them both and get more goals.
Strange clean sheet we kept in our last league game with a fit first choice back 6 then….
Monsieur Debuchy would disagree
We have competition. I don’t know why some people are still calling for signings. Check the team list on dot com, then you’ll see that the only thing some fans need is to support any 11 thrown on the field and healing dust in the injury room.
Some ‘fans’ will never be satisfied. I suggest they go support Chels$i….
what a nice dilemma to have as a club…..spoilt for choice, and thats also right through the squad, injury willing of course!
Ozil is normally allowed to wander around as he sees fit to influnce play, so i dont see any problem in playing them both
It’s not that we’ve a lot of players playing well right now, but just how well they’re playing.
One minute we’re playing half the team out of position (out of necessity) … the next – we’ve serious strength in depth. And at just the right time too. Costa suspended. Fabregas limping. Man City looking awful.
Not so long ago we couldn’t afford to rest Alexis or Mertesacker and were feeling the loss of Arteta and Walcott. Now, not so much.
I have a strange feeling that our skipper is going to make a good manager once his playing days are over.
This has been one of my greatest headaches for a while.
I do love the options at our disposal but i do not see them both in our most effective 11…. well, depending on the level of opposition.
I would play Santi in those extremely tight and low margin for error games and Ozil or both in the “hard to breakdown” games.
The issue is how do you keep a world class player like Ozil playing 2nd fiddle to Santi?
Thank God i am not Wenger…
Its looking good, very tasty. What a difference a month makes… COYG!!!!!!
Why not play them both together in midfield (with Coq as DM), so Ramsey can be eased back while discovers his form?
It still seems to be a waste of Ozil’s talent out in one of the front three,especially with Walcott and Alexis to play those positions with pace to make the 90 mins a living nightmare for opposition defenders
I say play them both. I said at the start of the season I thought we might sell Cazorla due to the fact he isn’t a left sided player and we were stacked in the middle.
Cazorla is a much better player centrally, wasted on the wings.
It seems Wenger tries to crowbar his #10s in the team.
Cazorla alongside Coquelin with Mesut in front of them would be awesome I think.
We can then rotate the two with Ramsey throughout the season.
i agree with this. coquelin at dm, cazorla at cm and ozil at am.
you’re forgetting that Wilshere will be back soon and will be brought back centrally so displacing one of our best central midfielders. Santi, Ozil, Rosicky and Ramsey have been way better and more creative in his absence.
Do think Wenger has to re-assess his priority for Jack in the main creative midfield position.
It feels good to have a full squad again. If we are being objective, this is probably the deepest squad in England right now. You can make a case for Chelsea but they play the same 13-15 players game in game out.
Even Stevens I think apart from goalkeepers and central midfield.
One solution play ozil in every home game where all teams park the bus and cazorla in away games as he’s stronger defensively and can still create
Good problem to have. Cesc would have just added to this problem, though it annoys me to no end that he landed at Chelsea. Also not clear what this means for Wilshere. I’m pretty sure that’s where he’d like to play as well, but don’t see him displacing Cazorla or Ozil any time soon. If we can avoid the sort of plague of injuries we had in the first half of this season, I’m feeling pretty good about the team situation/depth for the first time in quite a while. Feels like any further additions would be a bonus rather than… Read more »
It would be very interesting to see them both in the middle together for one match with Coquelin behind them, though for the Villa game Wenger will surely start Ozil wide left, Walcott right, Coquelin, Santi and either Rosicky or Ramsey in the middle. When we are at our best on offense the players are interchanging positions and Ozil and Santi are all over varying where they pick the ball up. The biggest challenge with this is making sure everyone is focused on their defensive responsibilities when we turn the ball over. As everyone gets healthy Wenger certainly will have… Read more »
One of those good problems
Omg what are we going to do in summer, we have no gaping holes in our squad any more. Amazing.
Assuming that Coq isn’t a 4 game wonder and Chambers/bieleik will be his cover what do we procrastinate over in summer?
We are for the first time in a long while sufficient in numbers with no outstanding needs. There is at least two alternatives for every position giving us option and variation. CF – Giroud Welbeck RW – Ox Walcott LW – Alexis Gnabry AM – Santi Ozil CM – Ramsey Jack Rosicky DM – Coquelin Flamini Arteta RB – Bellerin Debuchy LB – Monreal Gibbs CB – Per Chambers CB – Koscielny Gabriel GK – Ospina Szsc Idiot media like John Cross (espn)will have a moan that we are now deficient at the back having let Sanogo, Podolski and Campbell… Read more »
let Ozil and Cazorla take turn each playing one half of every game