At around 2pm on Saturday a collective sigh went up around the Emirates stadium. The Arsenal team sheet was in, and Santi Cazorla, struggling with an achilles injury, was not on it.

The mood of the supporters is not always an accurate gauge of a player's importance, but on this occasion they had it about right. When Cazorla plays, Arsenal are usually fluid and play as a coherent team; when he doesn't, well you get performances like the one in the turgid 0-0 draw with Middlesbrough.

To be clear Arsenal are not a one-man team. In Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott to name just a few, they have outstanding players across the pitch and boast a deeper squad than at any time during Wenger's reign. But if there's one player whose absence alters the whole tempo and structure of the team it's Santi.