Santi wrote:Marsbar100 wrote:To sum up the quality cesc has, since his return in 14-15 he has 41 pl assists to ozils 42, thats ridiculous that even past his prime he has managed to keep pace with a 10 as creative as ozil whilst playing deep and barely starting for 2 and a half years.
I could see Wenger's predicament having cazorla, ozil, Ramsey and wilshere, in hindsight it was a no brainer though.
Didn’t he say it was because of Ramsey? That’s what makes it worse for me, obviously never rated the guy but no reason we couldn’t have them all and see who worked out best.
Really it would likely have meant Cazorla stayed as Ozils backup or out wide and we had better options all round. Never turn down a player of cesc’s quality, especially with a first option buy back.
"When he left we bought [Mesut] Ozil to buy an offensive player," Wenger explained. "We have [Santi] Cazorla, we have [Jack] Wilshere, we have [Aaron] Ramsey, we have [Alex] Oxlade-Chamberlain, who are all offensive players.
We were not in the need to buy offensive players. It makes sense if you just look at the balance of the team. I think that's a decision that is easy to understand".
Whilst I could see his point, he was being narrow minded and not looking at the bigger picture and as you say I think with a player of cesc quality you just don't turn it down especially for such a cheap price as they really wanted rid and they already owed us money on the transfer and we was already signing sanchez who they really didn't want either, so we had a great bargaining position.
Squad is key, in 13-14 are title challenges blew up because Ramsey got Injured, if we had of had cesc that season to have come in for Ramsey the chances of us being as affected would have been significantly slimmer.
Not for the first time in Wenger's career he had a massive warning on how injuries could impact your chances of winning silverware in 14-15 ozil and ramsey didn't start 33 pl games between them, ozil won the world cup that year it wasn't that unpredictable he could get injured and miss games. Cesc only missed 1 pl game that season.
In 15-16 and 16-17 we was doing well until cazorla got Injured and we went to pot, if we had cesc we would have been perfectly placed to not have missed cazorla.
With cesc in the squad all the players may have had less injuries and been fresher throughout the season with proper rotation and not being rushed back from Injuries, maybe cazorla would still be here as Wenger wouldn't have needed to rush him back due to his Importance.
He said we didn't sign him referenceing Ramsey and ozil, the reality is neither of them are controllers, hence us being so affected by cazorlas abscence, with the pressure off ozil and ramsey controlling a game and having someone be able to supply the ball to them in dangerous areas and allowing them to focus on scoring and assisting they would have benefited the most from cesc.
Sanchez would also have been even better with a consistent controller, as good as he was he sometimes got involved deep in midfield trying to make things happen to much with a lacklustre midfield in cazorlas abscence.
We would not have massively strengthened a rival who won the title in his first season there, them not having him and us having him would have made us a hell of a lot closer to the title.
Considering how important cesc was to Chelsea in his first season and the shit show 15-16 season you would think we Def could have won at least 1 if not the first 2 titles in his first 2 seasons back.
Cesc was so well loved by the fans Wenger didn't take into account the boost it would have given the club and fans as a whole bringing him back, the same as signing ozil the year before
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:18 am