Why Arsenal's troubles can be traced back to Santi Cazorla blow

As Arsenal’s players prepared to add up the air miles they would accrue on their 14-minute flight back from Norwich, it seemed they were also counting the cost of two injuries. Alexis Sanchez had developed a hamstring problem. Laurent Koscielny’s hip had forced him off. Santi Cazorla was also troubled by his knee, but he had completed the 1-1 draw, “on one leg,” according to Arsene Wenger. The Spaniard seemed the least of the concerns.

That was at the end of November. Koscielny actually featured at Sunderland six days later. Sanchez returned in January. Much as Cazorla’s menace is camouflaged by the silky way he strokes passes, the impact of his injury was disguised; certainly initially, but even to this day. Now the best-case scenario is that his comeback is in April. The title could be gone by that point; if not mathematically, then at least probably.

By then, the inquest may have already begun into why Arsenal’s best chance to win the league since 2004 has been squandered. Familiar factors will be cited; defensive disasters, a loss of composure at key moments; a tendency to regard fourth place as a trophy rather than the silverware itself; Wenger’s refusal to sign an outfield player last summer rather than recruiting a high-class centre-back, a defensive midfielder or a striker, if not all three; the ever-present injuries.

[ALEXIS SANCHEZ: Arsenal don't have the self-belief to win the title]

[TOM ADAMS: Arsenal will never progress with Wenger in place - he has to go]

Arsenal’s innate Arsenalness always gave them less margin for error than, say, Manchester City’s lavish expenditure permitted them in the title race. And yet it is tempting to wonder if Cazorla’s seemingly innocuous knee injury will prove the pivotal moment.

Not simply because he was officially the second most creative player in the Premier League last season or, in a squad whose lack of leaders has been widely noted, he is captaincy material, playing with a dogged determination that belies his short stature and shortage of speed. It is because when the playmaker departed, Arsenal lost not one player, but two.

Francis Coquelin enjoyed a personal annus mirabilis as Cazorla’s steely sidekick. He was catapulted from obscurity to indispensability in such a way to invite questions as to how such an accomplished player had been overlooked for so long. The answer, perhaps, is that the Frenchman is a terrific midfielder when paired with Cazorla but not when the Spaniard is missing.

It is partly a stylistic issue, partly a statistical one. Coquelin and Aaron Ramsey do not share the same chemistry; replacing a deep-lying playmaker with a box-to-box raider has left Coquelin looking exposed, less the Arsenal Makelele than a slightly better Mathieu Flamini. Arsenal have been unbalanced by Cazorla’s removal, the gaping holes in their midfield especially apparent at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Yet they won there last season when Coquelin and Cazorla were in harness. That was an FA Cup match, but consider their figures in the Premier League: they have started 30 games together, and Arsenal have procured 64 points in that time. By the standards of this season, that is title-winning form. In the current campaign, their alliance has yielded 23 points from 12 games. Take away the defeat at West Bromwich Albion, when Coquelin was forced off after only 13 minutes, and it becomes 23 from 11. In the remaining 17 games – including the Albion match when Cazorla was twinned with first Mikel Arteta and then Flamini – Arsenal’s return is a mere 28 points; that equates to 62 over a whole season; not even enough for fourth place.

Arsenal have only averaged 1.42 goals per league game since Cazorla was struck down; taken over an entire year, that would produce a mere 54. The Spaniard’s significance lies not just in his totals of goals and assists, but in his indirect influence. Sanchez has not netted in the top flight in his absence. Theo Walcott has only done so twice. Perhaps Arsenal’s roadrunners miss a man who could unleash them on lightning counter-attacks.

The reality is that Wenger stumbled on the Coquelin-Cazorla double act; even their initials support the suggestion that they were the C team in his central-midfield planning 18 months ago. But in a campaign where the balance of power in north London has shifted, the story of a season is that Arsenal have lost a central-midfield partnership and Tottenham have found one, if not two.

Mauricio Pochettino may have envisaged nine months ago how well Eric Dier and Dele Alli would dovetail. Few others did. He perhaps thought that Mousa Dembele, who had only started 10 league games last season, and Dier, perceived as a multi-purpose defender then, would form an effective alliance. Outsiders certainly did not.

The Belgian has a PhD in flattering to deceive but is now delivering, but Alli and Dier are the real revelations, an infinitesimal upgrade on Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan Mason. Arsenal can vouch for the catalytic properties of a purposeful, productive central-midfield duo who lend solidity and creativity in equal measures.

One, seemingly assembled by chance, threatened to propel them to glory. Now another could take Tottenham to the crown, which would probably entail beating their neighbours on Saturday before finishing ahead of them. Yet if Arsenal’s worst fears are realised, amid the evisceration of the blame game, they should reflect with regret on the absence of the shuffling maestro who served as creative fulcrum, supply line and senior partner in an alliance of opposites.