A really bad break for Arsenal today, as their Premier League title chances just took a massive hit. Midfielder Santi Cazorla, a very important piece for Arsenal, extremely crucial to the systems they run, will be out for three months. Cazorla will undergo surgery for a serious injury to his right ankle.
His operation will take place in Sweden next week after the situation showed no improvement with rehabilitation.
Cazorla has been described by Gunners Manager Arsene Wenger as “important to our technical stability in the team, to the quality of our decision-making and to our build-up from deep midfield.”
Now it’s up to summer transfer window acquisition Granit Xhaka to step up and be that creator from the central midfield position.
Arsenal has won two of its five Premier League fixtures since Santi Cazorla went down on October 19th. The Gunners have drawn the other three. Currently, they’re in fourth place in the table, and posses the fourth best odds of winning the title, say the bookies.
Xhaka was arguably Arsenal’s biggest signing this past summer, arriving from Borussia Monchengladbach shortly after the season ended. However, he hasn’t really been used a lot in matches of magnitude. He’s only made a handful of appearances and those were all in less important competitions.
Why? Who knows, but it doesn’t matter anyway, as it’s now about to get real for him and Wenger.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
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