Santi's struggles: Miracles escape even football's most magical players

It has been a season of goodbyes for Arsenal.

First, it was Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Kieran Gibbs last summer, as the departure of long-serving first-team players hinted at widespread change with the north London lot. Then, it was forwards Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott, and Olivier Giroud, and tough-tackling defensive midfielder Francis Coquelin. Shipped out in the winter window, the Gunners soon after barely resembled the club that had slogged through seasons of relative mediocrity.

A changed squad, but the same results, as Arsenal slumped to the worst finish of Arsene Wenger's celebrated 22-year tenure amid a period of flux. And when the Frenchman announced his exit on April 20, it appeared to be the final goodbye in a season defined by a wholesale exodus.

Then, on Monday, midfield maestro Santi Cazorla announced he would be leaving the club in the summer after six injury-plagued seasons.

Related: Cazorla leaving Arsenal after 6 injury-riddled seasons

A tenure made erratic not by of the absence of skill, but because of injuries that will define the abbreviated puppet master's time in north London.

There is no shortage of "what-ifs" in football. What if Cazorla did not suffer serious knee and Achilles injuries: Would Arsenal have ended the decade-plus wait for league honours that defined the second-half of Wenger's tenure? Would the Gunners have been the fateful stroke of midnight to Leicester City's Cinderella run in 2015-16?

What if Arsenal had a substitute left to use on Cazorla on that dreadful November 2015 match at Norwich City, during which Sanchez and Laurent Koscielny were marshalled off with injuries? Had Cazorla not been forced to play the full 90 on one leg, would he have required knee surgery?

If only football was the magical, spellbinding entity it's too often and too easily aligned with.

Statistics show Arsenal was a different side when the two-footed slick passer was in the squad.

The contrast in successes with or without Cazorla pulling the midfield strings is an irrefutable fact that hampered the club over the last few seasons, especially the 2016-17 campaign during which Arsenal never lost in the 10 matches Cazorla was featured in the starting XI.

With Cazorla, Arsenal most resembled the fluid "Wenger ball" that typified the first-half of the manager's spell. The Spaniard moved the ball quickly and efficiently, rarely dwelling on decisions. He also made those around him better, not the least of which is the club's other passing aristocrat, Mesut Ozil. Wenger confirmed as much in March, saying, "He suffered a lot from the loss of Santi Cazorla."

"Cazorla in deep midfield, can get out of pressure, gets the ball played through to a player who is higher up and then Ozil is a player who, with the timing of the pass, with the ball at the right moment, he can always do damage."

He could also bend a decent dead ball on his day.

Ultimately, serious injuries reach a point when something more than football is prioritised. Like Abu Diaby and Eduardo before him, Cazorla was an Arsenal talent whose career was sidetracked by ailments, but unlike the other two, who suffered horror leg breaks, the Spaniard's Achilles concerns threatened more than his time on the pitch. Repeated surgeries to repair the issue saw Cazorla nearly lose his right foot to infection.

Related: Cazorla reveals amputation scare, hopes for January return

In January, Cazorla confirmed that eight operations on the problematic injury nearly required amputation and that a skin graft from his left forearm was necessary to cover the eight-centimetre chasm left by the infection's wrath. Cazorla considered retirement. Who wouldn't?

Thankfully, he avoided disaster, but even in the reveal of fortuitous news, Arsenal supporters realised they would likely never see the player again grace the Emirates pitch. When the 33-year-old was witnessed training at the club's opulent north London digs the last week of April, it was only a tease.

It's facile to align football with the mystical. A sport littered with legend and fable that transcends generational gaps and ethnic divides, football is often described in supernatural ways. But it's not.

There's no hocus-pocus in football, no witchcraft, and no enchantment. Moments that appear tethered to powers beyond our control are not mythical, but are rather testaments of otherworldly skills and happenstance. Santi Cazorla may have been a sorcerer on the ball, but those were the limits of his foray into trickery.

Even for an incomparable midfield wizard, there is no magic in football.