Mesut Ozil and his German team-mates had a simple task to beat Northern Ireland last night, but when the Arsenal midfielder was brought off and replaced by Ilkay Gundogan at half-time all hell broke loose among Gooners thinking that he had suffered an injury.
But the fact is that Germany were already 2-0 up and cruising so in fact Joachim Low was doing us a favour by not risking an injury to our star midfielder. Ozil obviously noticed the furore and immediately took to Twitter to reassure the Arsenal fans. He tweeted: “Thanks for taking care because of my substitution but everything is all right guys ?? ”
Meanwhile over in Slovenia, Theo Walcott was trying to prove that his recall to the England side was deserved after a brilliant start to the season for Arsenal, but he seemed to have reverted to his form of last season, and looked totally out of his depth against the lowly Slovenian side and was taken off after an hour. In fact this is what the Mirror Player Ratings thought of his performance “Walcott 5 – Sent one effort fizzing over the bar but did not offer much threat. Was hooked early. Bad night.”
The watching England fans were totally unimpressed and his replacement Andy Townsend was much more productive in his half hour on the pitch. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gareth Southgate drops Theo again for the next round of World Cup Qualifiers.
Let us all hope that this hasn’t destroyed his confidence as he has been amazing for the Gunners this season. What did you think of his England performance?
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I’m soooooo relieved that Ozil is okay and that our boys return uninjured
Not worried about Theo. England whole attack and midfield underperformed
As long as Theo continues playing well for us then I will be happy and Theo will get another chance with England
Woo Hoo…. International Break is over
The England team is filled with individual players who want to get on the scoresheet. Walcott thrives by making runs and playing little one twos. Sturridge and Alli are completely different from Sanchez and Iwobi in this respect. I think Walcott is yet to earn the confidence of his England teammates!
I am still not convinced with Walcott.Like the OX he is a confidence player and also susceptible to injuries. I want to see him complete at least 75% of the season in good form before claiming he is back.
I am just hoping Walcott keeps his form for arsenal, watching him playing for England squad he seems like a stranger to the group or in other words an outsider. Unfortunately for the Walcott i fear he needs other arsenal players to be part of the squad, because other players seem far more comfortable with the players around them base on familiarity. Anyway if he continues to perform for arsenal, he will continue be chosen for the english team.
Ozil was taken off for precaution, which i felt the Germany coach was doing a generous favour for us here at arsenal. So we basically have everyone back without any MAJOR casualties, let us hope for the best for SANCHEZ
No one has mentioned Sanchez as having any injuries so he should be okay as Chile played last night. But surely he will suffer from jet lag after playing about midnight.
If you look at arsenal’s “front 3” I would think if everyone was fit, my candidates for a front 3 position in order would be alexis, welbeck, iwobi, perez, giroud, walcott, chamberlain, akpom, sanogo.
For the no.10 role it would be ozil, ramsey, Adelaide
For the 2 cm roles it would be cazorla, xhaka, coquelin, elneny
Left back Monreal, gibbs
Right back bellerin, jenkinson, Debuchy
Centre back koscielny, mustafi, Mertesacker, Gabriel, holding
Keeper Cech, ospina, martinez
Talk about completely off topic!
I would’ve preferred Theo not play for England. Hopefully he won’t start doubting himself after this because the dude even shocked himself by the sounds of things, maybe shocked is the wrong word, he did say he’s a changed man though. It might just be that England don’t have Arsenal’s fluidity in breaking down opposition, teams trying to get a handle on Ozil Alexis Cazorla Iwobi but then one diagonal run by Theo they don’t see coming is just too much for many teams. I didn’t see the game so I can’t say how bad he was, or even if he missed any chances. I haven’t heard anyone say anything about guilt edged chances. As long as he still has his clinical form going I think I don’t care how bad he was in general for England.
Phew… I almost crapped my pants when I saw Ozil been substituted at halftime. Glad he’s okay, as well as the rest of the boys on international duty.