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'Cazorla is the perfect footballer'

Per Mertesacker has hailed Santi Cazorla as the "perfect footballer" after his brace against Aston Villa on Saturday.

The Spaniard was in sparkling form at Emirates Stadium, and his 85th-minute strike secured a morale-boosting victory for Arsenal.

"You see he takes his chances with his technique and his feeling"

Per Mertesacker

Mertesacker feels Cazorla’s quality could be decisive in the battle to finish in the top four.

“You see he takes his chances with his technique and his feeling,” the German international told Arsenal Player. “He is the perfect footballer. He has the technique to score goals and that’s what we need after losing the last two home games.

“There was a bit of pressure but we are on a good run in the league so just needed to focus on that. It was a very important [result].”

Arsenal face Tottenham in the north London derby on Sunday and Mertesacker hopes they can keep their run going, having beaten them 5-2 in their past two games.

“We want to climb up the league into the top four,” he said. “That’s our target for the next couple of weeks. We have enough games to achieve that.

“We’re looking at what Tottenham can do at West Ham on Monday and then we have the derby and we want to go on like [against Villa].

“The last two home games against Tottenham were absolutely fantastic. We try to keep that in our mind and want to achieve the same things, to score goals.

“If we play our game properly, we can compete with every team in the Premier League. That’s what we need next Sunday.”