‘Ridiculous’: Hale End graduate says 37-year-old Arsenal let go was ‘the best’ he’s played with

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Speaking on The Beautiful Game Podcast, Isaac Hayden has been speaking about his time at Arsenal and Santi Cazorla’s brilliance.

Hayden is a stalwart in the Newcastle team these days, but he came through at Arsenal, graduating from the Hale End academy and even making two senior appearances for the Gunners.

Hayden trained with the first-team on plenty of occasions, and while he’ll have seen the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez up close and personal, he claims that Cazorla remains the best player he’s played with.

What’s Hayden said about Cazorla?

The midfielder reminisced on his time playing alongside the Spaniard at Arsenal.

“In terms of just raw ability, Santi had no physical attributes whatsoever in terms of size, speed, pace, stamina, he couldn’t really run, but technically he was outrageous, absolutely outrageous. His feet were so quick, his left and right foot were basically the same. His vision, his weight of pass, technically, he is the best player I’ve played with, he was ridiculous,” Hayden said.

Untouchable

In his pomp, Santi Cazorla was simply one of the most untouchable players in the Premier League.

As Hayden says, he wasn’t quick, he wasn’t strong and he certainly wasn’t a runner, but he just had an unparalleled level of skill.

Even the biggest and strongest defenders couldn’t get near him, and that’s because of his technical brilliance and his incredible footballing mind.

Even at the age of 37, he’s ripping it up in Qatar, and if he was able to stay injury free, he’d probably still be performing at the very top level in Europe.