Arsene Wenger and the other Arsenal players have both pinpointed the additions of Mohamed Elneny and Alex Iwobi to the Gunners first team in recent weeks has brought about an immense improvement in our form, and I honestly can’t see that either of them will be dropped from the remaining League games unless they are forced out through injury.
But it has also been said many times that Arsenal’s first drop in form came when the little Spaniard Santi Cazorla first got injured and Wenger was left to experiment with Aaron Ramsey in the middle beside Francis Coquelin or Matthieu Flamini.
Arsene Wenger was talking about the Elneny/Coquelin pairing against Watford and the began discussing the difference between the two partnerships, and it makes for interesting reading. “Both of them are improving offensively,” he said. “When Coquelin plays with Cazorla, Coquelin is the defensive player which made them a perfect pair. Then Coquelin focused more on defending and Cazorla more on attacking.
“Now both [Elneny and Coquelin] share the job, so the balance is a bit [better]. They’re more similar. We have four attackers in front of them so we need people who can defend well in central midfield.”
So Wenger will obviously have a big decision to make when Santi finally returns to the fold, but Wenger’s last update on the Spaniard’s return made it look unlikely that he will be playing again this season. Le Prof said: “Santi has started to run, but is still a few weeks away I think. I hope [he will play again this season] because he has started to run.
“We have to always be a bit cautious, because you never know how people will respond to training sessions, but at the moment he looks like he has a chance to be completely fit to respond again before the end of the season, and to be competitive.”
But whatever happens this season, the next campaign will be a different kettle of fish. If we had all three of Coquelin, Cazorla and Elneny all fully fit, which two would you choose?