Who is our best midfielder in the past decade?

[Oxeki]

Cazorla still killing it in the poll.

My man

 

[musoke]

Özil without a doubt.

His arrival immediately got us our first trophy in years when supposed superstars got us failures like the Birmingham final in the last decade. And then we went on to win 2 more trophies after that under him.

So does this also suggest that his arrival start to get spanked by consistent big score margins like 6-3, 6-1, 5–1, 5-2, 10-2 on aggregate etc?
Or does this also insinuate that his arrival also correlate to our fall from a Top 4 club to a 5th, 6th, 10th placed club? Before he arrived those score lines weren’t the norm. Before he arrived we were a constant Top 4 club.
Can you see how your Causation and Correlation argument is not that convincing?
Did we win those FA trophies because of him or under him?
Evidence please.

 

[musoke]

Cazorla still killing it in the poll.

My man

Santi has been the most enjoyable midfielder for me since he joined in 2012. The most complete midfielder for us in that time. So much talent with less hype.

 

[musoke]

Comparing him to our worst midfield ever is not really giving him any compliments. Not saying he isnt a good player, he is great. It's just that I don't think he's as good as people make him out to be.

Okay, let’s not compare Santi to our worst midfilders currntly, lets compare him to our better ones, the likes of Cesc, Rosicky, Hleb, Nasri, Arshavin, and the likes of Verratti, Modric, Silva, Mata, etc.
Do you think Santi would look out of place against those players?
Iniesta is just amazing, what makes him just that little level above Santi is that he would run at his opponents, take them on, play quick 1-2, gets into their penalty box to score. To me Santi not known for running at players, he is very good at getting out of tight spaces with 2 or 3 players surrounding him. Very good with both his feet. Talent-wise santi is as naturally gifted as Iniesta. To me Iniesta always pushed himself harder while Cazorla just seems a bit laidback. But Iniesta and Santi in the same team I don’t think Santi looks out of place or out of his depth.
If you gave me a choice between the 2 then Iniesta all the time. But would not be at all disappointed if I ended up with Santi.

 

[Tom349]

Cazorla benefiting greatly from being injured and finishing his Arsenal career without fans witnessing his decline, cause their is absolutely no way he is close to being our best mid of the past decade. I feel like I have walked into a Diaby thread saying he would have been the next Viera if not for injuries. It is amazing the way people are remembered given the way they left or finished out their careers versus the actual impact they had.

Our best mid of the past decade is either Ramsey or Özil and some distance to Cazorla followed by Arteta. Contrary to the rubbish thrown about in regard to Özil, he was our most consistent midfielder of the past decade and enjoyed a higher peak than most others. Ramsey is the only one who can challenge him in regards to having a higher peak with his 13/14 season being one of the best any midfielder has produced in the past decade, although he missed the latter half of the season through injury so falls short of Özil peak. While Ramsey also has two cup winning goals and at his best is one of the best b2b midfielders in the world. Problem being he was often injured and took a number of games to get going again in which time he could also re-injure himself.

 

[musoke]

Forgot to mention the 13/14 final where he was brilliant!

What game were you watching? This is why these YouTube clips are the worst thing to have ever happened to football.
Özil was one of the poorest players if not the worst player in that FA CUP Final against Hull.
He was a 5/10 at best. The whole team was poor that final but Özil was even poorer compared to the rest. Absolutely terrible game. Even the likes of Wilshere and Giroud contributed. Özil did absolutely nothing apart from ghosting in and out of existence for the duration of the 106 minutes he was on that pitch. Him and Podolski were absolutely terrible in that game.

 

[musoke]

Cazorla benefiting greatly from being injured and finishing his Arsenal career without fans witnessing his decline, cause their is absolutely no way he is close to being our best mid of the past decade. I feel like I have walked into a Diaby thread saying he would have been the next Viera if not for injuries. It is amazing the way people are remembered given the way they left or finished out their careers versus the actual impact they had.

Our best mid of the past decade is either Ramsey or Özil and some distance to Cazorla followed by Arteta. Contrary to the rubbish thrown about in regard to Özil, he was our most consistent midfielder of the past decade and enjoyed a higher peak than most others. Ramsey is the only one who can challenge him in regards to having a higher peak with his 13/14 season being one of the best any midfielder has produced in the past decade, although he missed the latter half of the season through injury so falls short of Özil peak. While Ramsey also has two cup winning goals and at his best is one of the best b2b midfielders in the world. Problem being he was often injured and took a number of games to get going again in which time he could also re-injure himself.

Wow.
But what does this say about these players?
To me it confirms that once you cut through all the noise and hype. Once one takes a real quiet moment to sit, relax, think deeply and reflect, they will analyse situations better.
Santi never got the complete social and media job hype, never got that celebrity status, never got a £250,000 - £350,000 a week contract like those players. His ego is so low. He remained on about £90,000 a week.
But people seem to be mature enough to look through all that social media hype noise and realising that Santi a soft spoken, very low ego, the always smiling assassin is a pure natural talent.
Stop looking at shiny and glittering objects. They are red herrings that will keep distracting you.
Lol

 

[kraphtous]

So does this also suggest that his arrival start to get spanked by consistent big score margins like 6-3, 6-1, 5–1, 5-2, 10-2 on aggregate etc?
Or does this also insinuate that his arrival also correlate to our fall from a Top 4 club to a 5th, 6th, 10th placed club? Before he arrived those score lines weren’t the norm. Before he arrived we were a constant Top 4 club.
Can you see how your Causation and Correlation argument is not that convincing?
Did we win those FA trophies because of him or under him?
Evidence please.

You seem to have forgotten (intentionally I guess) that we got spanked against big teama before Özil ever arrived. We won a trophy the season Özil arrived, something the likes of Ramsey / Cazorla / Fabregas / van Persie couldn’t do during their time before Özil’s arrival. It’s not a coincidence that other players raised their level with a superstars arrival.

 

[Riou]

You seem to have forgotten (intentionally I guess) that we got spanked against big teama before Özil ever arrived. We won a trophy the season Özil arrived, something the likes of Ramsey / Cazorla / Fabregas / van Persie couldn’t do during their time before Özil’s arrival. It’s not a coincidence that other players raised their level with a superstars arrival.

Fabregas and Van Persie both won the FA Cup in 2005, bit harsh on Caz too as he was only into his second season at the club when we wo the cup in 2014.

 

[kraphtous]

Fabregas and Van Persie both won the FA Cup in 2005, bit harsh on Caz too as he was only into his second season at the club when we wo the cup in 2014.

Is it really harsh when you compare Özil who won the FA Cup in his first AND second season? Everyone who hasn’t forgotten knows that Cazorla pretty much disappeared in the second half of his first season and had to be bailed out by Rosicky / Ramsey / Artera for that top 4 finish, nevermind a trophy. Özil’s arrival took both Ramsey and Cazorla to a different level.

 

[Riou]

Is it really harsh when you compare Özil who won the FA Cup in his first AND second season? Everyone who hasn’t forgotten knows that Cazorla pretty much disappeared in the second half of his first season and had to be bailed out by Rosicky / Ramsey / Artera for that top 4 finish, nevermind a trophy. Özil’s arrival took both Ramsey and Cazorla to a different level.

I don't want to get into a bashing contest with Caz and Mes, I love both.

But it's not like we signed Özil in 2013 and that guaranteed us ending our trophy drought from 2005, the more quality players you have the more likely you are to win...by 2013/2014, we had Cazorla, Özil, Ramsey, Wilshere, Rosicky, Arteta, Sagna, Kos, Per etc...we had a pretty good squad...plus from 2006-2013 we had a few moments where he nearly won a trophy, but just didn't have that little bit of luck in the end, in 2014 we got that little bit of luck.

Özil earned all his medals with Arsenal, but it's not like he single handily carried us to them wins, everyone in the team played their part.

 

[Makingtrax]

the more quality players you have the more likely you are to win.

Yes, get in!!

 

[kraphtous]

I don't want to get into a bashing contest with Caz and Mes, I love both.

But it's not like we signed Özil in 2013 and that guaranteed us ending our trophy drought from 2005, the more quality players you have the more likely you are to win...by 2013/2014, we had Cazorla, Özil, Ramsey, Wilshere, Rosicky, Arteta, Sagna, Kos, Per etc...we had a pretty good squad...plus from 2006-2013 we had a few moments where he nearly won a trophy, but just didn't have that little bit of luck in the end, in 2014 we got that little bit of luck.

Özil earned all his medals with Arsenal, but it's not like he single handily carried us to them wins, everyone in the team played their part.

Love both of them as well, but you can’t argue that they all raised their level with Özil’s arrival. In the season before, we had all of these players, and the same manager too but they didn’t win anything and just barely made the top 4. But then a season later, we were a much better team, everyone suddenly started improving, and Özil is a big part of that. They started believing that they can win stuff and not just play well.

 

[pigge]

Okay, let’s not compare Santi to our worst midfilders currntly, lets compare him to our better ones, the likes of Cesc, Rosicky, Hleb, Nasri, Arshavin, and the likes of Verratti, Modric, Silva, Mata, etc.
Do you think Santi would look out of place against those players?
Iniesta is just amazing, what makes him just that little level above Santi is that he would run at his opponents, take them on, play quick 1-2, gets into their penalty box to score. To me Santi not known for running at players, he is very good at getting out of tight spaces with 2 or 3 players surrounding him. Very good with both his feet. Talent-wise santi is as naturally gifted as Iniesta. To me Iniesta always pushed himself harder while Cazorla just seems a bit laidback. But Iniesta and Santi in the same team I don’t think Santi looks out of place or out of his depth.
If you gave me a choice between the 2 then Iniesta all the time. But would not be at all disappointed if I ended up with Santi.

Okay.
Overrated doesn't mean he is not a great player. It means people rate him over his ability. A few people here overrates him.
Might be more since so many people are responing.

 

[Tom349]

Wow.
But what does this say about these players?
To me it confirms that once you cut through all the noise and hype. Once one takes a real quiet moment to sit, relax, think deeply and reflect, they will analyse situations better.
Santi never got the complete social and media job hype, never got that celebrity status, never got a £250,000 - £350,000 a week contract like those players. His ego is so low. He remained on about £90,000 a week.
But people seem to be mature enough to look through all that social media hype noise and realising that Santi a soft spoken, very low ego, the always smiling assassin is a pure natural talent.
Stop looking at shiny and glittering objects. They are red herrings that will keep distracting you.
Lol

This is all incredibly irrelevant. I mean media job hype works both ways, you look at Liverpool players and even their **** ones when they were **** were looked on favourably by fans and media and in turn they sold **** players for decent money. Meanwhile our **** players you would be mistaken for being championship level or lower based on what the media and our fans says about them. Which in Cazorla case I would argue he got given the credit he deserved and that he is was underrated by opposition fans which is how the media often spoke about him but he was never good enough to be spoken about any higher. He was never spoken ill of by the media that is for sure. He was great to watch no doubt but his overall impact on the game wasn't noteworthy to the extent of his team mates.

Compare that to Özil who the moment he doesn't do what the english media expects of players gets 5 articles written about him and it plays a part into why he is so maligned. Case in point Özil will finish a game with close to the highest amount of km's covered and sprint attempts yet the narrative is he is lazy because he doesn't pressure the opposition in the same way someone like Alexis Sanchez would. The data at the end of the game would often show Mesut to be one of our hardest working players yet because he doesn't run around like a mad man like Alexis and has poor body language compared to a smiling assassin like Cazorla he is looked at in a different light despite the data telling us otherwise. The media and fans would rather focus on the time he doesn't tackle hard enough rather than the things he did well which comfortable outweigh the things he doesn't do well.

The media is great at choosing certain narratives which they attach to players to suit their own agendas, so if anything Cazorla has actually benefitted from a lack of media coverage. Had he been rated higher he would have been scrutinised a lot more when he didn't perform.

As for wages I fail to see how this is all relevant to 'who is our best midfielder in the past decade'. I mean for starters better players get paid better wages, as do players who are more marketable which is partly why Mesut wage is so high. But ultimately it is irrelevant because wages aren't a factor when discussing who is better out of player X vs Y.

 

[freeglennhelder2]

Cazorla still killing it in the poll.

My man

It’s not much competition though is it tbh? Ramsey the only plausible contender.

Arteta - steady player
Coq - one standout season
Özil - not commenting I don’t want death threats
Jack - why did he fly into tackles ffs....why???
Xhaka - apart from the 45,000 times he lost the ball and put us in trouble a great player
Rosicky - run around a lot, nose injuries ruined him

 

[Makingtrax]

Not much difference between Cazorla and David Silva in terms of talent. Both nimble and visionary, but Santi is two footed and slightly better in my view.

Özil is a different player, not as nimble, can't tackle much but his passing is sublime and very creative. Together they made a great pair, particularly with Sanchez .

We would have win the league in 2015/16 had we not had so many injuries . . . Bellerin, Walcott, Ramsey, Chamberlain in a list of 10 injuries in November. Then Coq got a 3 month injury and Arteta several weeks. Then at Norwich Cazorla was finished and Sanchez pushed in the camera pit. Horrendous. Such a shame the defence was spot on that year for a change. Still, came 2nd.

 

[Macho]

Lol as much as I love him, Caz is not better than Silva sorry. He’s a bit guilty of being overrated amongst Arsenal fans but he’s also completely dismissed outside of Arsenal. Much like Koscielny in his pomp.

Bar his initial season, Özil has largely been poor for us and a huge part of why were so sh*t today. Technically, Ability and cv wise he’s our best and highest paid player but he’s not done anything of note for years.

He’s arguably one of our worst signings to date if I am honest. The poor output over the years, his salary, missing out on good players (Cesc going to Chelsea), his negative influence on the squad, controversy in the media, will he/won’t he contract Merry go rounds, he’s truly f*cked us that guy. In more ways than I can count. Awful signing with the gift of hindsight.

 

[Oxeki]

. In more ways than I can count. Awful signing with the gift of hindsight.

Even with the benefit of hindsight, some of his Acolytes will tell you he's the best thing that even happened to Arsenal

 

[Oxeki]

Okay.
Overrated doesn't mean he is not a great player. It means people rate him over his ability. A few people here overrates him.
Might be more since so many people are responing.

All that is irrelevant. The most relevant question is "was Özil a better performer for us than Cazorla or not?

We both know the answer to that question