The inestimable joy of Tomas Rosicky

"If you love football, you love Rosicky." At first glance it seemed an absurdly reductive statement for Arsene Wenger to make. Until closer examination revealed it to be irrefutably true. If you love football, how can you not love Tomas Rosicky?

Not loving Tomas Rosicky is like not loving sunshine. And the comparison is instructive: rarely seen during the biting autumn and winter months, the crisp air of the waning frost heralds his annual reemergence as he bathes his light upon the game once again.

Forget emergent snowdrops or the chirp of a proud goldfinch as it presents its bright new plumage, Tomas Rosicky finding form is still the most accurate indicator humans have that spring is coming.

And we must savour the occasions when, as on Sunday against Brighton, Rosicky lights up a football pitch with his touch. They are all too infrequent. He is now 34 but rages against the dying of the light. "I lost two years because of my injury," he insists, "so let's talk about my football age."

But even that is 32, and as he unsuccessfully tinkered with new midfield formulations in the first half of the season, it was notable that Arsene Wenger did not attempt to construct one around the notoriously fragile Rosicky.

But this fragility only compounds his popularity. The weakness inherent in his physical frame - of aching contrast to the bold character he shows when in possession of the ball - makes him a sadly inoffensive player. Rosicky will not do weekly damage across a season. His life-affirming bursts of form do not have a duration which allows him to get under the skin of rivals. He is no Lionel Messi, whose consistently astonishing form has aligned the whole Madrid press and public against him.

It's okay for everyone to like Tomas Rosicky because he is safe. Admiring glances can be cast without ever fearing a comeuppance.

And that is the great tragedy of Rosicky: that he could have been, undeniably should have been, this kind of player. When Arsenal signed him prior to the 2006 World Cup and then he scored those two scorching goals against USA, the Premier League had a potentially transformative player arriving in its midst. The Little Mozart who had so bewitched the Czech Republic and became the Bundesliga's most expensive signing at Borussia Dortmund.

But injuries have ensured his Arsenal career has charted a very different path. Having excelled as a wide player in one of Arsenal's most well balanced and cohesive midfields in recent years - that of Rosicky, Mathieu Flamini, Cesc Fabregas and Alexander Hleb - his input following that 18-month injury has been rather more sporadic and ad hoc. A freelance playmaker, ready to slot in wherever required, without ever really securing a regular role.

His long-awaited return in September 2009 brought a goal against Manchester City. There have been other great strikes - against Tottenham after 72 seconds, last season's intricate construction against Sunderland, Sunday's pleasing volley against Brighton. But, though fun, the true joy of Tomas Rosicky is not to be found in his goalscoring, but his remarkably thrilling and rather unique manipulation of the ball.

Football yearns for players who are different. Who if they were a silhouette on the pitch, would still be instantly recognisable thanks to their gait and touch and the way they make a football move. Rosicky is one such player.

It is the way he twists and turns, full of creative possibility; the way potential energy becomes kinetic as he passes, prods and pushes the ball in his distinctive manner, through all kinds of gaps and via all kinds of angles and trajectories; and, like a native tribesman utilising every part of an animal carcass, the way no part of his boot goes to waste: instep, heel, toe, laces and, most gloriously, the outside as he audaciously sends a cross-field pass soaring across the turf.

Such mini-explosions of impudence could be seen as superfluous. This flawed argument also extends to the portfolio of no-look passes which he scattered around Sunday's masterclass against Brighton. Never mind that they evoked Ronaldinho in his Barcelona pomp, they were still seized upon by one critic, who overlooked the well-established fact that great art does not have a responsibility to be functional or respectful.

"If that was a training session and somebody did that I'd be first over there and I'd probably look to two-foot him or take him out of the game," joked Phil Neville on Match of the Day 2, before backtracking on Twitter. "If somebody did that in training to me, winding me up, I would be straight in there. I'd smash them."

Incidentally, if you are ever unsure of which side of an argument, or cultural fault line, to place yourself on, just find out where Phil Neville resides in relation to the matter and leap hurriedly across to the opposite side.

Rosicky is a strange and wonderful creature. The kind of player who probably wouldn't make the starting XI with everyone fit but should be named Time's Person of the Year. The kind of player who can do nothing for half a season and then be mentioned as a prominent target for Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich.

But that is the lure of Rosicky, the startling brilliance that pulsates inconsistently but discolours all around it by comparison. Savour the warm glow of his talent for however long it may last and whenever it may appear.