Cazorla signs: midfield and attacking options for next season

Finally Cazorla is an Arsenal player and we can start dreaming about our starting XI and more specifically our midfield and attack. With Cazorla, Giroud and Podolski we have signed 3 quality and experienced forward thinking players. Some incredible attacking prospects for next season. So I have promised to do an analysis of the midfield and attacking options for next season, providing there may be more additions before the end of the summer. Nuri Sahin has been most heavily linked in the last few weeks.

As it stands we have the following midfield players in our squad. I am including wing players and defensive midfield players. I am also including injured players - longer term injuries will be scratched off.

Alex Song . Mikel Arteta . Aaron Ramsey . Tomas Rosicky . Abou Diaby . Jack Wilshere . Gervinho . Theo Walcott . Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain . Ryo Miyaichi . Andrey Arshavin . Francis Coquelin . Emmanuel Frimpong . Henri Lansbury . Santi Cazorla . Andre Santos

Now lets divide that up into their respective categories: I am assuming we will stick with our 4-2-3-1 formation. There are a few versatile midfielders, so there may incidents where a name pops up in more than one category.

Central Defensive Midfielders:

• Alex Song - primary position
• Francis Coquelin - primary position
• Emmanuel Frimpong - primary position

Box to Box Midfielders:

• Mikel Arteta - primary position
• Abou Diaby - secondary position
• Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - tertiary position
• Henri Lansbury - primary position
• Jack Wilshere - primary position

Central Attacking Midfielders:

• Aaron Ramsey - primary position
• Tomas Rosicky - primary position
• Abou Diaby - primary position
• Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - tertiary position
• Andrey Arshavin - secondary position
• Santi Cazorla - primary position
• Mikel Arteta - secondary position

Right Wingers:

• Theo Walcott - primary position
• Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - primary position
• Santi Cazorla - primary position
• Gervinho - secondary position

Left Wingers:

• Gervinho - primary position
• Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - secondary position
• Santi Cazorla - secondary position
• Lukas Podolski - secondary position
• Ryo Miyaichi - primary position
• Andre Santos - secondary position

Strikers:

• Robin Van Persie - primary position
• Olivier Giroud - primary position
• Lukas Podolski - primary position
• Marouane Chamakh - primary position
• Gervinho - tertiary position
• Theo Walcott - secondary position

Next to each players name is a tag - either primary, secondary or tertiary position.

Santi Cazorla is used frequently in CAM and RW therefore they are both his primary positions.

Andre Santos is primarily a left back but he has been played at LW during the course of pre-season. 

Gervinho has been used up front during pre-season and Walcott believes his future is in the centre.

Park Chu Young, Nicklas Bendtner have not been included as Wenger has said they will leave. Robin Van Persie is included because his future is in the balance and he has as big a chance of staying as he has of leaving. Juventus and Man City have seemingly pulled out of the race leaving only United in for him. 

Options are running out captain. 

I will now try to establish the best possible midfield and attack based on the information above. Players injured for a longer term will not be applicable. 

------------------------------------Alex Song-------Mikel Arteta------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------Santi Cazorla---------------------------------------------------

--------Theo Walcott---------------------------------------------------------------------Gervinho----

--------------------------------------------Robin Van Persie----------------------------------------------

This may cause and probably will cause some debate. None of Olivier Giroud or Lukas Podolski make my team. If Van Persie stays he is still a starter. One other option if you wanted to include Podolski or Giroud would be to drop Van Persie into the CAM role, with either Podolski or Giroud up front and Cazorla replacing Theo on the right. The awesome thing is that there are so many options which weren't available in the last few seasons. For example, many will argue that The Ox deserves his place instead of Walcott on the right. I feel he is still a bit young though.

I'll leave you to debate it.

Exciting Times Ahead....

'Till Tomorrow