Today, I remember one of the best attacking midfielders to have ever played For Arsenal, Santi Cazorla. What a genius we had on our hands then. Good with the ball at both feet and good at scoring from set pieces. What a player indeed!
Santi Cazorla spent six years with Arsenal, making 180 appearances, scoring 29 goals and providing 45 assists. More than just goals and assists, he provided a huge amount of stability in possession and progressive play from midfield. Unai Emery’s team could probably still use him today, especially now that our creative midfielders seem to lack ideas on how to create goal scoring chances. Most Gunners fans probably remember the player most for his smile and his free-kick goal to spark the 2014 FA Cup final comeback resulting in the club’s first trophy in almost nine years.
“When you are at a big club like Arsenal, sometimes you don’t realise what it means to be there until you are gone,” he said in the Independent. “I never got to say a proper goodbye. It was the biggest team I played for in my career and I miss everything about Arsenal. I don’t know what my legacy is there, you would have to ask the fans, but I want to say thank you to them all. I would like to play at the Emirates one last time before I retire.
“I don’t know what I will do afterwards – maybe a coach, maybe a sporting director – but I would love to go back to Arsenal. I lived in London for six years. My son loved it there. In the future, we will see if I have the possibility.”
When Cazorla was sold to Villarreal in 2018, a lot of Arsenal fans were very sad to see him leave. He had controlled our midfield for such a long and enjoyable time that his departure was being felt, even before the season started, in 2018. We still had Mesut Ozil in the team then, but nobody really thought that Cazorla was not going to be missed when he left. In fact, he has been greatly missed.
Over the weekend, Santi Cazorla scored a wonderful goal for Spain and that goal got me thinking about the possibility of Cazorla putting on the Arsenal jersey once again, and if the quotes in the Independent regarding Cazorla thinking of returning to Arsenal someday are to be believed, then I will start hoping and wishing for the day he would return to Arsenal in any capacity.
Anyway, enjoy the Video of his comeback game and watch him scoring for Spain again at 34 years of age.
Sylvester