Is Wenger strong enough to give Ozil the ‘Conte’ treatment?

Arsene Wenger has been told he needs to be tougher on Mesut Ozil, with the German seemingly given an easy ride.

The German international is regularly singled out for criticism by fans, with the 28 year-old putting in a number of lazy performances despite being one of the best players in the Premier League.

Thierry Henry has now claimed that he needs to be given a tougher time from his fellow players and staff, with Wenger refusing to take him from the field despite his performance.

‘He doesn’t’ take Mesut off when Mesut isn’t on his game and that can happen,’ Henry told Sky Sports. ‘It shouldn’t happen the amount of times it does happens but Mourinho wouldn’t hesitate.

‘Conte wouldn’t hesitate. It happened a couple of times with Eden Hazard last year.

‘What happened? The three times he took Eden Hazard off after an hour – the game after he scored from the halfway line [against Arsenal].

‘He destroyed Arsenal because he woke him up.

‘We always focus on Ozil because he’s a brilliant player on his day. We had players like that in my team.

‘If Arsene doesn’t do it and have a go then I would go back again. I’m not trying to find excuses for Arsene but if you’re not tracking back I’ll tell you or grab you.

‘Some players went further than that but players will react in the second half to that sort of thing.’

The fans are quick to see how badly the playmaker is playing at times, and without enough impetus, so why can’t Wenger act on that? Is the manager blinded to it? Or is Wenger simply not brave enough?

Pat J

Tags Arsenal Ozil Thierry Henry Wenger

22 Comments

  1. ramsey implied mesut got special treatment
    wenger is a purist loves the truly gifted ones.
    not surprising he has soft spot for nemo

    shame mesut takes that for granted
    same attitude as he had in madrid

  2. Ian Wright said Arsene gets angry if anyone speaks harshly to any of his players, so I doubt very much if that will ever happen. Also the players says Ozil goes to Arsene’s office to ask for anything he wants. But I think Wenger need to be tougher on the players generally because that will help them perform better.

  3. Wenger will not dare to drop Ozil, because he needs to sell him as soon as possible. And he doesn’t want to look like he made a wrong purchase, so he keeps using Ozil as a starter.

    I think Ozil will leave before this transfer window closes. His form is not good enough for a contract extension and Arsenal has to get some money to purchase better players.

      1. I will be so happy if he leaves. He is so overrated by Arsenal fans, so much so that not one club i Europe came in for him over the summer, unlike Sanchez, Ox and even Wilshere. I think Arsenal would perform much better without Ozil in the team.

        Now here me out on this one. I think Arsenal could do well if we buy some spine for the team. Virgil Van Dijk and Seven N’Zonzi are still available. Why not buy them and play this formation, would be good enough to compete with the sides that finished in front of us last year.

        Cech
        Ox – Koscielny – Van Dijk – Monreal – Kolasinac
        Xhaka – N’Zonzi
        Ramsey
        Sanchez – Lacazette

        Ramsey gets forward better than Ozil and is more of a threat, works harder and obviously defends a lot better.

  4. The reason Wenger’s teams have no spine or character is because he himself is soft and the players don’t fear him in the right way. They know they can get away with subpar performances and repeat mistakes.

  5. managers are there to remove the weak and add strength to the club ,otherwise the club will get weaker and the manager will end up losing his fame and face the consequences.

  6. Wenger doesn’t reason the way we fans do and we are held hostage for it.
    Despite this, Admin is there any sickness like fanaticestes? If not, why am I believing that we’ll get 30, I mean 30points from the first 10 games the season?

  7. Wenger has been a fragile manager for quite some time now, this is why he doesn’t enjoy confrontational players in and around his squad and why he finds it difficult to bench players who haven’t been disloyal publicly…for years his more meek and cerebral approach paid dividends as the team was stacked with world-class players who were incredibly demanding on one another so Wenger’s role could be largely that of the proverbial “good cop”…whether it was Adams, Keown, Viera, Flamini, Petit, Henry etc…there was no shortage of those who would police player behaviour on and off the pitch…at that time Wenger’s role was more of peacemaker between factions that developed inside the club, especially as they became more successful and more divisive issues arose involving things such as playing time, salaries and performance levels…unfortunately the only thing he gleamed from this experience was to avoid more volatile or flamboyant players, regardless of their skills or pedigree, and create a more balanced approach to our wage structure…this directly led to the problems we currently face as many deadwood players make fractionally less than those who contribute on a regular basis…ultimately it becomes increasingly difficult to get rid of those overpaid players, which means a lot of money wasted just to maintain this problematic wage balancing act…just think of who our captains have been in recent years, most are soft-spoken lackey-types, oft-injured and/or sold quickly thereafter…how did Vermellien retain the armband even when he was nowhere near the pitch for almost a year and how were Arteta and Per given the mantel so quickly but not Sanchez…he should have been given the armband the moment he walked in the door, but this would have been disastrous for the Grinch who stole soccer…on the other hand this could have been the greatest thing to happen to our club in a long, long time as he would have held this club and it’s players to a much higher standard…just saying

  8. If Wenger had a sack both Ozil and Bellerin would grab some bench @ Stoke.

    Laca
    Welbeck…Ramsey
    Saed…Xhaka..El Neny..Ox
    Monreal…Mustafi…Holding
    Cech

    But sadly we all know Le Prof can’t seem to find his nutz when players lack form

  9. OT : Like this or not… Ars will neither win the PL nor the UCL under STAN & WENGER.. Even if we bring in a new manager, it will only solve half the problem. Till then our club will remain as it is.. So be prepared to compete with Liv,Spurs,Everton & not Man U,ManC,Chelsea

    1. The thing is that if Kroenke is replaced by a majority shareholder who cared, or even if there was no overall majority shareholder, like the the old days, Wenger would take care of himself, either he shapes up, or ships out. The reverse would not be true … we could get the best manager in the world, and we would still have the same problems with Kroenke putting himself and KSE before Arsenal, to Arsenal’s demise.

  10. We are starting to see numbers like ’70 mil’ for Van Diik. The transfer business truly has gone crazy.

    If Van Diik fetches 70 mil and Walker fetched 45 mil then Wenger’s purchase of Lacazette was an absolute bargain.

    1. Laca was a bargain but that is why his dithering on Lamar and Seri was so expensive and meant we got priced out of the deal. We always wait too long in the window allowing others to come in for our targets. Seri would have been an easy buy when the window opened now Barca are in talks and until they are done and walk away we can forget getting him.

  11. Two schools of thought with Ozil – one is that you put your arm around him to bring out the skill that we know lies within, the other is to be tough with him. As all of us here on on the outside, and don’t know the player, we can’t really judge. What I will say is that he didn’t look fit on Friday and he looked exhausted by half time. AW should’ve pulled him off, and put on Iwobi, for both his and the team’s benefit.

  12. When ozil palys well, he goes like oh no!! we need to keep ozil!! Ozil, please stay and become the poster boy!
    When ozil plays bad, he goes like oh no!! why wenger plays him at all? we don’t need him.
    The stuff that Henry says about arsenal is starting to become a joke. please stop posting stuffs he said, no one wants to hear.

  13. All your comments are out of order!!!!!!!!! so ungrateful to Ozil , You only like to complete players where they do not deserve anything. Last Ozil created lots of chances but nobody willing to convert those to goals, Did Giroud got blame ? No. Ozil had highest assists to Premier stop been ungrateful of him, Do not tell me about Ramsey how many seasons we got Ramsey, If he was so good why did Wenger buy Ozil ??? All players need to perform and stop pick up one player . That old Per Cech i do not rate him anything he is so useless , When arsenal signed all the fans and pundits were signing winning where did he take us for those two season is better if we had Ospinah and Szesny at least both of them made us won two FA CUPS, Cech has been awful there is nothing so special to him his days are gone, He came to arsenal to get pay not winning anything and assist players like Fabregas . Conceded many goals where he was suppose to save but let them in.

  14. Ozil is a very talented player but when arsenal are not doing well in the pitch ozil becomes the weakest player….arsenal still have a long to go ozil is not consistent enough….. Sometimes iwobi should be given the knod over ozil I believe he can do better than him

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