Manchester City sit top of the Premier League, three points above Arsenal, despite being found guilty of 114 financial charges.
It made Sunday’s game between Man City and Liverpool awkward viewing, not just for Gunners fans but football fans in general. That awkwardness was exacerbated by the fact that City battered Andoni Iraola’s side 3-0 after a contentious decision to send Ryan Gravenberch off changed the flow of the game.
Manchester City v West Ham United - Premier League
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Theo Walcott acknowledged as much before picking Rayan Cherki’s goal against Liverpool as his Premier League goal of the week. Speaking on his TikTok, the former Arsenal forward made a point of separating the finish from everything else looming over the club, before comparing Cherki to a former teammate of his.
“I’m gonna completely separate all these charges that Man City have,” Walcott said. “Rayan Cherki, after Santi Cazorla, has the — he’s two-footed, right? It’s amazing. I don’t even know which is his best foot.
“The goal’s great. Just the dummy and then the little touch to land space to get his finish off is fantastic. Most players would have just lashed at that.”
Santi Cazorla was Arsenal’s two-footed genius
Signed by Arsene Wenger in 2012, Santi Cazorla spent six years at the club before his departure in 2018. Though he was an incredible player generally, he quickly became renowned for his ambidexterity, which had opponents always guessing which way he was going to go.
Most “two-footed” players still have a stronger side that they disguise well, but Cazorla didn’t appear to have one at all. He would take corners from both flanks with his inside foot, shoot from either side of the box without adjusting his body, and pass with whichever foot the ball stopped at.
Walcott, who played alongside him for all of those six seasons, is as well placed as anybody to judge, and his point is that this quality is so rare. Cherki, who scored against Arsenal in the “title-decider” back in April, is the first player he has seen in a while who leaves him guessing in the same way.
Of course, Walcott is comparing one specific trait between the two rather than the players as a whole. Cherki is 23 and in his second season in England, while Cazorla arrived at Arsenal already established as a 27-year-old who had just won a European Championship with Spain.