Can Arsenal still win the title in absence of injured Cazorla?

If Arsenal fail to win the title this season - or, more relevantly since it is something they have not done since 2004, fail to take their challenge past March - we may already have a defining and decisive image. 

That was the sight of one of their most important players, Mesut Ozil, cowering away from a challenge in one of the most important moments of their match against Everton. The playmaker was right beside Ashley Williams when that 85th-minute corner came in, but remarkably turned his back just as the centre-half was rising to power in the winner. There might be a fair argument that an attacker like Ozil should not have been in that situation in the first place but, since he is, he should not get a pass just because he’s so talented. He should have at least taken some responsibility. 

Instead, his body language just screamed ‘not my problem’. It was definitely his problem once Arsenal went behind, since it meant the next goal it would have been his job to create would have been an equaliser rather than a winner, and it is certainly a problem for the whole team that they lost a league game for the first time since August and dropped points in the title race. 

It capped what was a bad night for Ozil in general, but then that’s the point. Williams’s goal may end up an image to regret, but much more important for Arsene Wenger is how they got to that point; how they couldn’t get their playmaker in positions to play more than one key pass in the entire game; how they ceded control of the game. They very quickly went from commanding the pitch to letting an improvised Everton midfield - and one without Gareth Barry - retake control. 

Wenger admitted as much after the game. “We have to look at ourselves,” he said. “We lost the game. We started well, and after that lost a bit of urgency. We were maybe a bit too comfortable and Everton made it very physical. I believe they disturbed our game and we created less. In the end, unfortunately, we didn’t take our chance or two. We didn’t create too many but we had one or two clear-cut and didn’t take them.” 

It is also telling, however, that their only two defeats in the league this season came without one player who usually imposes control on that midfield starting: Santi Cazorla. 

The stats from this season alone are telling. Arsenal have an 85.7% win percentage with Cazorla in the team, and just 44.4% without him. There’s also a very strong argument that his injury caused their title challenge to falter last season. Sure, they might well have won five of the next six after he went down in the 1-1 draw to Norwich City at the end of November 2015, but they gradually began to feel his loss. By the end of March, Arsenal were just such a slow team, with no penetration and no-one seemingly able to get the ball up to those lightning attackers in time. 

They may have a similar issue this season. After playing such brilliant breakneck football through October and November, Cazorla’s latest long-term injury was confirmed on 30 November this time - a day after the one he got it in 2015 - and there has been a growing sense of Arsenal just losing some of their zip. 

A deeper problem to that, however, is that the Spanish playmaker is also 32 years old. Wenger does not just have some decisions to make for this season as to what to do in the centre, then. He also has decisions to make for the future. Wolfsburg’s Julian Draxler has - again - been put forward as a potential January signing, but he has generally played on the flank and further forward, and Arsenal could face competition from PSG. 

So, Wenger may have to look at what he’s already got, and none of it offers the control combined with the ability to release in the way Cazorla does. The Arsenal manager then has to decide to try for something similar in the market, or go a different route. Each of his potential pairings offer something different in themselves.  

Francis Coquelin-Mohamed Elneny provide defensive running and the least attacking thrust, as illustrated by how they offer the fewest key passes per game - at eight - of all the potential partnerships. The most in that regard so far has been Elneny-Granit Xhaka, with 13, but Coquelin-Xhaka are just behind on 12.8 and that seems Wenger’s favoured duo in the absence of Cazorla. He has used them five teams - including in that defeat to Everton. 

And this is the thing. If Xhaka is the obvious Cazorla stand-in, as seems to be the case, it means - for the moment - more game-breaking running and shooting but also more open displays and the odd game where Arsenal can’t get hold of the midfield in the same way. Wenger may have some adjustments to do around that, or slightly alter how the midfield works, to keep this title charge running at the speed it has been.