This is why, at the time of Arteta’s signing many fans (myself included) were still looking at Mata and wondering what might have been. Arteta is quality player, but he’s not regarded as the potential world beater that Mata is – evidenced, perhaps, by the inclusion of one and not the other in the national team. Young Juan is a tricky, skilful little game changer you could consider building a team around and though our own Spaniard possesses some of that ability himself, his expertise has really shined through this season when keeping it simple. Also Arteta is a lot older than Mata, with a lot less room

Alreet Gunnerizzles, how’s it going?

Five-straight-league-wins-in-a-row great, I presume? Ten-wins-and-a-draw-in-the-last-twelve-games-in-all-competitions super, I would guess? Slowly-but-surely-climbing-the-tabl-  …ah, you get the picture.

Just a quick little piecelet for you today about the impact of two players – one we have and one we could have had – the first being gorgeous, greasy-haired pass-monkey Mikel Arteta, the second pint-sized nimblefoot Juan Mata. After choosing/being forced to ‘choose’ Chelsea over Arsenal, Mata now finds himself playing for a team in severe, 4th placed ‘crisis’, while after choosing Champion’s League football over continuous meh Arteta has found himself a key factor in bringing a similar ‘crisis’ to an end at AFC. Both however are fantastic players and both would have been welcomed at Arsenal fo sho (mo fo).

But, I think it’s fair to say, Mata more so. There was a period of a week or so when it genuinely seemed that Mata would be arriving at AFC, and the failure to lure him was pretty important in determining perceptions of our summer. We were all pretty much resigned to losing two key players by that point and Mata was seen as one of the only replacements who was a) obtainable and b) of a similar calibre, and losing out on him was therefore taken as an early indicator that our team this year would fall well below the standards that we saw at times last year.

This is why, at the time of Arteta’s signing many fans (myself included) were still looking at Mata and wondering what might have been. Arteta is quality player, but he’s not regarded as the potential world beater that Mata is – evidenced, perhaps, by the inclusion of one and not the other in the national team. Young Juan is a tricky, skilful little game changer you could consider building a team around and though our own Spaniard possesses some of that ability himself, his expertise has really shined through this season when keeping it simple. Also Arteta is a lot older than Mata, with a lot less room for progression, and he came as a last minute signing with a recent injury record, which is far from ideal.

But as our team has begun to gel in recent weeks, and our form has improved, the plaudits for Arteta have come ‘thick and fast’ – like both Chris Waddle’s perception of Theo Walcott and Waddle’s brain process in arriving at that conclusion. This fantastic piece from the ever-excellent Desi Gunner highlights Arteta’s fantastic contribution to the team, and various individual stats (most passes p/game in the PL, only PL player to feature in the top ten for most passes p/game across the five major leagues in Europe) all go to show how our team play has been enhanced by his subtle effectiveness.

So much so, in fact, that it’s not wrong to wonder just how well we would have coped without him. There is no-one at the club, besides the long-term injured Jack, who can even come close to playing the role so well, and our settled, fluid and often functional midfield has been crucial in keeping us going. Arteta’s stats aren’t just good, they are some of the best, and while we have some good midfielders in our squad the qualities they possess are in different areas. It is highly unlikely that they would have been able to provide us with the dependable base that Arteta has been so pivotal in constructing.

And with this in mind, it also seems quite alright to wonder if, maybe, Arteta was actually a better signing for us than Mata, at the time. This is not to say that Arteta is the better player, or even than Mata wouldn’t have significantly improved our team, but only that Arteta helped to fix our problems in a way that Mata might not have.

It’s like that famous Zidane quote from when Real sold Makalele and bought Beckham:

“Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?”

This time around there was, of course, no Bentley (the pointlessly-groomed breeze merchant was rotting at Wham by this time) and we were buying, not losing, an engine, but the principle is much the same. It made much more sense to properly service our Fiat Cinquecento before shelling out for turbo boosters – the car may have gone faster if we had but at least now it seems less likely to break down again.

However, now that we are stable and appear to be functioning well there is a general feeling that we are still missing that extra little bit of quality to turn our seemingly reliable team into a genuine force. It is now that a Mata becomes necessary, if we want to move up to that next level. Our team is no longer in ‘crisis’  but we are still in seventh place, and a prediction of higher than third come season end seems optimistic in the extreme. Even our one-time title contenders of last season only managed fourth, and repeat of which would definitely be considered a success, but we still need to make the most of our solid foundations and take the chance to build upon what we have – a chance that we have failed to take too often in recent years.

Take that chance, however, and we could well see a more comprehensively complete Arsenal team than we’ve seen in years. We’ve always had potential but this was often coupled with a fragile mentality and a level of naivety that seemed to counteract it when it mattered most. But now we have the experience and leadership, and calmness that goes with it, that should help to keep us in motion when the going gets rough. 

If we can find some Mata-level additions to enhance our Arteta-powered machine then we might just find we end up with exactly what we’ve been missing these past few years: a team with both the power to reach the front and the engine to last the distance.

WB

@WengerBoy1