Arsenal Find a Fine Midfield Balance with Cazorla and Coquelin

Arsene Wenger will have been perfectly justified in feeling pretty smug after Arsenal's 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday. And not just because of the final score, but the nature of the performance as well, Arsenal playing with style, verve and no little solidity.

They essentially played in a manner that has previously looked rather beyond them in big games, dominating the Premier League champions from the start and not allowing them to play, cutting off supply lines to City's primary threats, David Silva and Sergio Aguero.

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And a large part of that was how Arsenal played in midfield. It would be tempting to heap praise on the attacking players that were so threatening for Arsenal, and indeed with the likes of Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Santi Cazorla all now fit and available to Wenger, they certainly have plenty of options.

However, the key to this victory was their midfield, with Aaron Ramsey settling after an erratic start when his decision-making looked all over the place. Indeed, before the game it looked something of a gamble to play the Welshman ahead of Tomas Rosicky—given the Czech's understated influence and Ramsey's spell on the sidelines—but it turned out to be a sound move.

Perhaps most impressive was Francis Coquelin. The man who spent some of the first half of the season on loan at Charlton was recalled by Arsenal in what looked a slightly desperate move, the midfielder doing little in the past to convince anyone he was the answer to Arsenal's midfield problems.

However, he has been excellent since returning and was again superb at the Etihad, isolating and neutralising Silva, who had been moved inside by Manuel Pellegrini in order to dictate play and compensate for the absence of Yaya Toure. If Silva had been given enough room to create and provide ammunition for Aguero, it would have been a much different story, but Coquelin ensured that didn't happen.

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Another huge factor in Arsenal's midfield dominance was the quite brilliant performance of Cazorla. The Spaniard has been in superb form of late and was man of the match on Saturday, as James McNicholas wrote on Bleacher Report.

Cazorla is perhaps especially key when Arsenal play on the road. When he is deployed in the No. 10 role in the middle of Wenger's favoured attacking midfield trio, the former Villarreal and Malaga man not only creates chances for others and himself, but is much more willing to drop deep than the likes of Sanchez and Ozil.

This means when Cazorla plays there, Arsenal play something closer to a 4-3-3 than a 4-2-3-1, which obviously takes pressure off the likes of Ramsey and Coquelin and can help overcome opposition midfields, as it did on Sunday.

Wenger said, as quoted by Andy Hampson of The Independent:

"

Since Cazorla plays central—he played a lot wide—now he is at a level of his career where he can have more influence.

He is fantastic because he gets you out of pressure in very tight situations and finds openings that are interesting. He shows you as well how important it is to be two-footed in the middle of the park. Left and right-footed, I think it is a vital quality for a midfielder today.

"

One wonders how long the form of Coquelin, in particular, will continue, and whether this is merely a brief purple patch before he reverts to type. Indeed, this should not provide an excuse for Wenger to not pursue a dominant central midfielder in the summer.

However, for the moment things are looking considerably rosier in Arsenal's midfield and should provide them with the backbone they have perhaps missed in the past.