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Arsenal need Cazorla
- Updated: October 24, 2016
Arsenal’s struggle to create chances in their goalless draw against Middlesbrough highlighted the importance of Santi Cazorla, writes Adam Bate.
Perhaps Arsene Wenger had tempted fate with his programme notes. “Maybe the reason for us scoring freely of late is that we’ve been making more of our chances,” he’d argued. “The final ball is better. Is that because our finishing is better? It’s difficult to analyse at the moment, but what is for sure is that we score more goals. We score lots of goals.”
On the occasion of his 67th birthday, the Arsenal manager should know by now that football can soon bite you and so it proved. Having scored in each of their previous 10 matches, notching up 29 goals in the process, the Gunners couldn’t come up with one at home to newly-promoted Middlesbrough, a team now on an eight-game winless streak.
What’s more, it could have been worse. “We could have lost the game,” admitted Wenger. Indeed, Boro had by far the better of the opportunities with Alvaro Negredo and Gaston Ramirez both going close. Arsenal, meanwhile, barely forged a clear-cut opening – firing off just two shots inside the box to their visitors’ eight.
Wenger pointed to the amount of possession his side had but much of it left Middlesbrough untroubled. Penetration was lacking. “We had 75 per cent possession but we did not always have enough pace and enough sharpness in our movement,” he admitted. “There was not enough creativity today.” He may as well have screamed out the name of Santi Cazorla.
The Spaniard had started every one of Arsenal’s six Premier League wins in a row but was missing on Saturday with an Achilles problem. It was the first time Cazorla had not been in Wenger’s starting line-up since the opening weekend defeat to Liverpool. Even then, the team had scored twice in 15 minutes following his introduction as a substitute.
When asked afterwards whether Olivier Giroud might have made a difference, Wenger was keen to emphasise that his compatriot’s absence was no excuse. …
