Ian Wright has revealed the one former Arsenal player he wishes was an option for Mikel Arteta now.
The Gunners have signed some quality players in their recent history and one of them was Santi Cazorla.
The Spaniard was a fan favourite and only left Arsenal because of an injury that looked like it had ended his playing career.
But he starred for Villarreal in Spain and is currently in the middle east still playing.
He was one of the best midfielders that Arsenal had in a while and Wright says he wishes the Spaniard was in this team pulling the strings.
The Gunners have some fine options at the moment with the likes of Dani Ceballos, Emile Smith Rowe and Martin Odegaard offering Mikel Arteta a selection headache, but Wright still reminisces about Cazorla and what he could do for this Arsenal team today.
He said on the Wrighty’s House podcast :
“You know something, you mention Santi there. You just think back to the players that we’ve had and the fact is that we’ve had some players in the past,.
“If we had Cazorla in his pomp now, playing him next to Thomas Partey… I feel like I’m going to cry.”
How right Wrighty is – a super Wenger signing and nothing to do with David Dein of course.
One of UE’s worst decisions to let him go just when he regained full fitness.
As Wrighty also goes on to say “the fact is we’ve had some players”… what a shame that some fans always want to highlight the players who they love to describe as “dross” and not remember the fantastic ones… as Ian Wright does.
When Carzola was injured when he was around
fans were calling him to retire or leave the club
Emery should never have let him go when he regained full fitness. All the money spent on treatment gone to waste. He could have given us 1 or 2 more quality years
@John
I remember people wanted him out.
But you can understand why they did. He was in his 30’s, had just come off a very massive injury.
I don’t blame that people wanted him out back then.
Ken, how can Santi Cazorla, not having his contract extended, be blamed on Unai Emery. He was not the “manager”, but “head coach”, expected to coach players provided to him. The decision on Cazorla like Pepe instead of Zaha, Torreira instead of Partey, is down to others.
@Ozzie
And they also failed to get Nzonzi, a player Emery wanted too.
The best midfielder we ever have in Arsenal team.
Fine midfielder but a big call, unless you saw Allan Ball, Ray Kennedy, Jon Sammels, George Graham, George Armstrong, Liam Brady, David Platt, David Rocastle, Patrick Viera, Emanuel Petit, Gilberto Silva, Robert Pires and Freddie Ljundberg to name a few, without even looking back to the 1930’s.
The little magician..