Now Mesut Ozil is out until 2015, Arsene Wenger has to think of a way to adjust Arsenal’s system to play without him in the team. Arsenal is lucky because they have a number of players who are quality enough to play in Ozil’s’ role or have the ability to change the system completely.
The most obvious is for Arsenal to keep the same 4-3-3 system and simply bring Santi Cazorla to come into the team and be allowed to have a free role starting out on the left like Ozil does. Cazorla has the quality to come into the team and potentially offer more to the team then Ozil does, especially defensively because Ozil very rarely offers support for Kieran Gibbs. Cazorla has similar vision to Ozil and the trickery to go along with it so it shouldn’t be much of a change for Arsene Wenger to make.
However with Ozil out of the team it allows Arsenal to try and play in a different system completely. Wenger could change the formation to a 4-4-2 diamond and have Sanchez playing centrally just behind Welbeck as a number 10 and have the fresh from injury Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on both wingers. It would mean that Arsenal has a terrifying amount of pace down both sets wings and the middle, something that would scare teams in the Premier League. 4-4-2 would also allow more protection for the defense because in the current 4-3-3 system Arsenal’s defense looks very exposed when hit on counter attack.
Personally I’d like to see Arsene Wenger change to a 4-4-2 system because it would allow the fans to see Sanchez in a more central role more frequently. Furthermore players like Joel Campbell and Lukas Podolski could be seen in the central roles wouldn’t them having the pressure of being the main center forward. With reports in the press that Ozil wants to apparently leave the Emirates it would also give Arsenal time to adapting to a new system without Ozil in the team.