Arsenal hero Santi Cazorla has revealed how Arsene Wenger moved to ease his concerns during his time at the club ahead of his long injury lay-off from 2016 to 2018.
The midfielder has been speaking to DAZN’s Fever Pitch about his career to date and a particular anecdote from his time with the Gunners.
He played for Arsenal from 2012 to 2018, having arrived from Villarreal in a €19m deal in August 2012 before going on to make 180 appearances in all competitions for the club.
That number would have been considerably higher had it not been for a series of injuries suffered at the club that limited his time on the pitch.
His biggest lay off was from October 2016 to June 2018, when the midfielder underwent ankle surgery on a long-standing issue that saw him miss 123 games for Arsenal and spend 618 days on the treatment table.
“Before I met him, he impressed me a lot,” he said.
“In the end, he was a coach who had been at Arsenal for almost 20 years. I think both Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson are going to be the only coaches who will be at a club for so long.
“But when you have a figure that represents so much for a club, for the fans, for everybody inside Arsenal in this case, you have a lot of respect at first. And yet Arsène is very close,”
“And just with the injury, I had doubts about whether the club wanted to renew me or not. But one day before travelling to have surgery in Sweden, Arsene called me into his office, without me knowing anything and told me: ‘Sign the contract for one more year. Go calmly to your operation, with a clear head, knowing you have one more year at Arsenal’.”
“This is a detail of how he is as a person and one that I will always be grateful to him for. And I will remember him with a lot of love.”
