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As the Premier League season crawls past its halfway point, the concern of just when Arsenal will undergo their traditional mid-season implosion is slowly and unsettlingly mutating into the question of if they will even do so at all. They may yet, and the personnel manning each end of their team are not unlikely to throw up problems, but with their squad arguably the most well-stocked with silky, chance-spawning engineers, there can be little doubt over their creative capacity.
Here we take a look at their five most creative players this season, based on the number of chances created.
Theo Walcott – 23
It is easy to make the mistake of thinking that Walcott has been largely absent from Arsenal’s first-team this term, but it is in fact not the case: the forward has actually appeared in 13 of his side’s 20 league fixtures and offered his fare share of attacking contribution.
He is yet to replicate the goal-getting that won over a good number of his doubters last season, but has nonetheless laid on 23 chances for team-mates and has clocked up double the number of assists (4) as Wilshere and Cazorla.
He may be nowhere near Arsenal’s finest or silkiest technician but Walcott boasts a unique – and startlingly efficient – threat, in his capacity to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible. Indeed, this inclination is borne of due to his technical limitations, but Walcott’s execution of the attacking basics – springing the offside trap, cutting back from the byline, crossing with pace, finishing smartly – has become more and more reliable with each passing season.
He remains far from perfect and retains his propensity to frustrate; most neutrals would rather watch the likes of Cazorla and Wilshere in action, but few can argue with Walcott’s tangible output. The news of his six-month will come as a bitter blow for Arsene Wenger and and his side’s title aspirations.
Jack Wilshere – 24
Another player, along with Ramsey, who has seemed invigourated since finding himself lining up next to Mesut Ozil, Wilshere has been in largely impressive form this term, able to add a driving urgency to his side’s attacks that no one else among the club’s band of architects can match.
Wilshere’s tenacious physicality, direct goalward dribbling and ability to execute the subtlest of passes while running at full-speed combine to offer a creative threat that is distinct from that of his team-mates. He is yet to show his best form over a prolonged stretch of games in the way Ramsey has, but one suspects that, once he does, his overall potential surpasses that of his fellow Brit.
Santi Cazorla – 25
Though having been ousted as Arsene Wenger’s foremost creator and, as a result, undergoing a less glittering season than last time out, Cazorla has nonetheless played a significant role in the league-leaders’ campaign so far.
The Spaniard is one of the division’s most pleasing players to watch and his genuine two-footedness is not only a great rarity but offers a tremendous advantage against defenders whose default objective is to show opponents into their weak side. The notion of a ‘weak’ side doesn’t exist in Cazorla’s world, and perhaps one of the key reasons that Arsenal could indeed maintain their title-challenge across the rest of the season is that the ingenious playmaker is yet to properly crackle into life.
Aaron Ramsey – 26
Without restating the obvious, these last few months have very much represented a breakthrough season for Ramsey, who has suddenly looked a wildly different player to his previous incarnation as a timid, limited, midfielder who passed the buck better than he passed the ball.
The most notable feature of Ramsey’s skyrocketing form this season’s has been his goalscoring – he already has 10 goals at the season’s midway mark – but his inventiveness has similarly improved, or at least his willingness to back himself to execute the difficult, defence-splitting passes of the sort that Ozil converted when Hull came to the Emirates in December.
Mesut Ozil – 45
Despite a recent drop-off in his splendidly eye-catching early-season form, Mesut Ozil has just about done what he could have so far to justify his club-record transfer fee. The bug-eyed German arrived from Spain with the reputation of assist king, the man who carves defences apart with a delectable marriage of vision and technique, and he has not disappointed. Only Wayne Rooney (who has two more appearances to his name) has laid on more goals than Arsenal’s newest creator, while the way in which Ozil has added newfound purpose and profile to an entire club is impossible to quantify but even more significant.
That Arsenal were already well-stocked with diminutive playmakers is simply proof – along with Manchester United’s acquisition of Robin van Persie a year previous – that sometimes providing a team with another of the same sort of player can still transform an entire side. Truly high-end quality can compensate for overall imbalance or even disfunction.
