Ozil’s RIGHT but needs to give Arsenal fans something to support

To be fair to the Arsenal and Germany international star Mesut Ozil, he is right about the fact that there can be too much criticism and negativity aimed at the Arsenal team and at individual players, including himself, buy a lot of Arsenal fans and by former players.

It really does not help, after all, when a team is struggling for form or a player for confidence to constantly hear how bad you are. We hear enough of that from football pundits who quite often appear to have an axe to grind against the Gunners for some reason.

When the likes of Ian Wright, Thierry Henry or the always negative Paul Merson get stuck into Arsenal it is sometimes understandable and with the first two I think it comes from the same sort of frustration that the average fan feels. But as Ozil said this week in comments on social media reported by Sky Sports, it would perhaps be better if people got behind the team rather than always putting them down.

The play maker wrote, “During the last couple of days my DFB [Germany] teammates have been asking me about how everything is at Arsenal at the moment.

“They claimed to have read about the current crisis through the media, as pundits and former players are commenting on a daily basis. They say that this could be the worst team in years, even decades.

“We have achieved a lot in our four years together [at Arsenal]. Three of the 13 FA Cup victories have been accomplished in the past four years, with the other 10 taking 75 years for the club to win.

“This is in addition to our three Community Shield wins. After all, six titles in four years is quite something. However, this only makes myself and the team even more disappointed for not playing a role in the title race at the end of last season – this is something we hope to change this year.

“Personally I’ve had to accept a lot of criticism during my time in London. ‘Too expensive, too greedy, bad body language, and lacking fight’ – this is what people have said about me.

“Some of these comments are made by those who do not know me, some are made by former players – both successful and unsuccessful during their time here at the club.

“Although criticism is something that all football players have to deal with, I nevertheless expected legends to behave like legends – my advice to these former Gunners: stop talking and start supporting!”

He does have a point I think. However, it is sometimes very hard to muster up any positivity when everything seems to be going wrong and I think it is a cyclical thing. A win or at least a strong performance from the lads would help us to get behind them and then they would feel the support and respond once again.

I am going to try to stay positive and see what happens. How about you?

Sam P.

35 Comments

  1. Wenger out!! Do u really think we could chalenge for the title? To me, we are three game out of a hole season and i know we are already out of the chalenge..how can we be postitive? Wenger and the board promoses us a good chalenge…we fans deserve the epl trophy…i will not gonna be happy with 4 place trophy, not anymore, even when there is a good chance we cwnt even get that

    1. No title challenge.

      But, given that you imply it is possible without Wenger, tell us you choice of Manager and players, with costs for each player also please.

      If you cannot provide the names of an alternative team with costs, then why bother being so glum? Tell us which ManU, ManCity and Chelski players you will poach. What other players from any league?

      1. That doesnt make sense, why should i lose my time playing to be a manager or fifa…i would start kicking wenger, anybody can do the job better..but tuchel is a great option to me…simeone a dream, both of them could comoete with the same team we have…then ox would renew his contract maybe for a rational wages or sell him…other manager would do the business early, buying a dm for example or paying what monaco wants for lemar 55m we were told…with lemar, lacazzette qnd a new manager alexis could renw his contract, i dont know…if he dont, we could sell him with lemar alteady on the side…but all of this is speculation…with a good manager we could have chances. Not with your idol

        1. @Lugdush.
          We can still win the title ..all we have to do is win 29 games, lose 6 games, draw 3 games…90 points.We can still and probably will lose against Chelsea, man utd, mancity all away and draw them at home and lose against Liverpool once more and we will still win the title…as long as we beat all other small teams…assuming Tottenham are a small team.

      2. All the Wenger fans tell us what he has done for our club recently and please dont talk about the revenue and the stadium. I always believed he belongs in the boardroom. I am talking about on the pitch. when i look at the way our players perform for club versus country its two worlds apart. Ozil is a prime example. The teams that Wenger put together currently and over the last ten years plus, find it very difficult to play as a defensive unit, we give away easy goals, why because Wenger believes in zonal marking and to be honest i dont think he believes in defending at all going forward we dont even look theatening anymore, too much mindless and slow sideways passing and we hardly up the tempo of our buildup play, in other words we dont mix it up. we have become predictable. Now i ask the question can we afford to keep Wenger untill the end of the 17/18 season.

        1. I know things are tough for may club and manager as well as my players recently, but I have plenty to do, arguing all the time against my friends who are fans of Chelsea, City, United etc. I don’t have time to debate with any negative Arsenal fan because no matter how different our opinions on the manager, we are Gunners who should genuinely support our team irrespective of results.

  2. “However, it is sometimes very hard to muster up any positivity when everything seems to be going wrong and I think it is a cyclical thing.”

    Everything is not going wrong. In fact much as has gone right at the transfer level, both coming in and going out.

    * Sanchez still there, with Ozil.
    * Two excellent players in.
    * Deadwood British core eroded.
    * Maybe a nice 100 million ready to spend on the right players in January?

    The loss to Liverpool was bad. One game.

    The first game showed us they have fight. The second that they had bad luck with one goals and two penalties given Arsenal players did not dive that day.

    The negativity is based on the loss to Liverpool and a deep seated anger as Wenger bordering on pathological hate–a sign of the internet age of absurdity.

    1. We can blame Wenger for poor tactics and not having a solid game plan to win matches but when it comes to transfers I place the blame solely at the feet of the Arsenal board. Too often Gazidis and co go public spewing lies that there is money to spend and they will do everything to help the manager improve his team . Yet for the past 80 days Wenger has been hampered in selling players by the board haggling over 1/2 million evaluation of players as well as not making funds available to purchase players .

    2. you are a mediocre like wenger. last season we lost our opening home game against liverpool and finished 3 points behind them. imagine we won that game. lets stop digging up positives in failure in order to make the situation less horrible, you cant hear man utd nor chelsea fan talk like this.

      1. Ok how many goals and assists has Ozil had for Arsenal since the end of last season? FA Cup final, preseason, 3 PL games, in total of about 10 games and against some very average teams in Australia?

        Zero, none, nada. He hasn’t scored a goal and hasn’t had one assist in 10 games but we better keep him in the team.

          1. Özil is in bad form, doesn’t defend and isn’t signing a new contract. He said he wants to go back to Germany and named three clubs, his manager was enquiring about moving to Barcelona but Messi said he isn’t good enough, hahaha but you all still think he should start. Why is it ok for some of you fans to bag out players but not Özil? There is more to a player than just a nice pass.

      2. Ramsey in a more forward role is sound suggestion. He’s criticised rightly to some degree in his deeper role – but always played well further up the pitch

        Problem is trying to fit Ozil AND Ramsey in same team

  3. a cop-out, plain and simple…you can’t have your cake and eat it to, especially when you’re not leaving it all on the field…we’ve heard this all before…I take it you would rather have us blindly support a piss-poor club, it’s under-performing players and the lame duck manager and just hope they finally figure it out after nearly a decade of lies and underachieving…just sit there with our painted smiles, taking punch after punch then simply replying “thanks can I have another sir”…no matter what argument you come up with you can’t spin this in a positive light because the product both on and off the field will tell the truth, as it always has…when the team acted with intent and respected the supporters this was not the tone in and around the club…when they chose to line their pockets, fabricate stories, lower their standards and not hold their manager accountable for his actions, they change the narrative…this was their creation, not ours…this isn’t a chicken or the egg question…this doesn’t even exist if it weren’t for years of ineptitude…this didn’t happen overnight…just think about the facts, not how things magically panned out or for that matter didn’t…it’s like Gazidis talking about this being a successful window and that the Pool match simply put a negative spin on things…it’s his contention that they achieved their goals all along, which was to keep Sanchez and Ozil…but he fails to look at the real facts, how they poorly managed contracts and they did try to sell Sanchez and that they lost the player that Wenger said would be a centerpiece moving forward and that all of this and more caused an enormous stir in and around the club which affected morale and that things are looking so good heading into September and that neither is still signed and that these types of issues will likely hang over our heads for the whole season and that if this had all been resolved earlier maybe Sanchez plays to start the year and maybe we don’t falter again from the get-go etc…please think before you speak

  4. Shame ln the club and ozil. This js totally irrelevant and its not the fans to blame for our poor start its the coach and players. Come on what hve the fans done vs stoke and vs Liverpool. We were too shocked to do anything. This is a smart move to make us cool down but have we unsettled the pkayers? No wenger is failing in his work

  5. Based on a 4-2-3-1 formation, last season, the following players were available for selection: first eleven was Cech-GK, Bellerin-RB, Monreal-LB, Mustafi-CB, Koscielny-CB, Xhaka-CM, Ramsey-CM, Ozil-AM, Sanchez-LW, Walcott-RW, Giroud-ST. Second Eleven had Ospina-GK, Debuchy-RB, Gibbs-LB, Holding-CB, Gabriel-CB, Coquelin-CM, El Neny-CM, Iwobi-AM, Welbeck-LW, Ox-RW, Perez-ST. Lacazette in place of Perez and will [hopefully ] get more game time than Perez means Giroud and Walcott are not nailed on, Kolasinac is a definite upgrade on Gibbs and is versatile enough to fill in at CB or DM, Chambers started more PL games last season than Gabriel. Between Reiss Nelson and Mainland Niles, we have enough talent and hunger to make up for Chamberlain, though short on experience, they [still] want to be here. In all, the window wasn’t as bad as we thought but playing Chamberlain against Liverpool was not the wisest thing to do, in fact, having two players on the pitch who definitely don’t want to be here is distracting and toxic at best, Mustafi was left out, why not the other two? I bet we wouldn’t have lost that heavily or even at all had Sanchez and the Ox been completely left out, one minute or ten years later left on their contracts is irrelevant, afterall, Liverpool left out Coutinho, Southampton left out Van Dijk, both key players but have not lost a game due to their absence, in fact bringing in Aubameyang [in addition to the two signings] earlier in the window would have been a masterstroke that would have made Sanchez leaving or staying less relevant than it is.

  6. I agreed with Ozil. All these so-called suporters who never have anything good to say about the manager, the club, the owner, or the players. What the hell are they supporting? The laundry? The club is not the stupid shirt. It’s not the badge. It’s the players and the coaches. I love that Arsenal doesn’t fire the manager every time the club loses. I love that the manager gives the lads every chance to prove they belong. I want Arsenal to win the title and I want Ramsey and Wilshire and Giroud, and Ozil, and Koscielny and the rest of the players who want to be at Arsenal to be the ones to be there when they win it.

    To Alexis Sanchez I say go f___ yourself with broken glass. If he’s such a great player, why are Arsenal no better with him than they were before he arrived? In fact, his best season was Arsenal’s worst in twenty years. I tohught he should have been sold. It seemed like Arsenal were willingto sell him abroad, but he only wants Man City because only the state-ownder club is willingto pay him what he’s demanding. He and his fans should recall he was discarded by Barcelona and his career was resurrected by Arsene Wenger. He will not enjoy the same support at Man City Ask Sergio Aguero, who has been City’s best player for the last eight years. Pep dropped him in a heartbeat for an unproven kid. So let Alexis go to MCFC and in two years, I hope he enjoys Turkey. Maybe he can share digs with Robin van Persie.

    Paul Merson has some sort of personal hatred of Arsene Wenger. I’ve never heard a good word or read a good word from him on the club or Arsene Wenger in the last five years. It would be great to know what spurs his single-minded, over-the-top loathing for the club and his former manager. It must be something intensely personal for him to act like such a c___.

    Arsenal are supposedly in crisis, but that’s just so much B.S. The team brought in two excellent players and were in for a third. Arsene Wenger said before the transfer window opened he wanted three players, provided they were of top quality. He got Lacazette, who is looking like a bargain right aobut now, he got Kolasinac, and he tried for Lemar. The Liverpool loss was brutal. Watching was torture because it was an utter and complete capitulation, but it happens. We just saw Chelsea get demolished by Burnley, 3-0. Burnley. Not Liverpool, Burnley.

    Chamberlain left and for me, that’s addition by subtraction. The Ox is a quality squad player with all the physical attributes to be a star, but has never managedto take the step from prospect to star. Part of it is staying fit and part of it is finding his best position. Wenger has been forcing him into the side in an attempt to keep him, but Chamberlain wanted to go and he made the right choice; not because Arsenal are in crisis, but because he needs a change of scenery. It’s not working for him at Arsenal. I don’t think he’ll be any better at Liverpool. He can’t finish, and he’s injury prone. It’s hard to imagine Jurgen Klopp, who can’t find room for Daniel Sturridge in his team, making room for the Ox who has so many similar attributed to Sturridge. To be fair, Chamberlain behaved like a pro during his transfer saga and unlike Sanchez, van Persie, and a host of others, is leaving in order to become the player he thinks he can be, not for money. Good luck to him.

    I wonder, if Arsenal finish 6th and win the Europa League, will the pundits kiss Arsene Wenger’s ass like they have Jose Mourinho’s?” They laud him for being a genius by prioritizing the Europa League pathway into the Champions League. no mention is made of the fact that prior to this year, there was no such pathway. Based on actual football performance, Man U should be home playing with themselves, not playing in Europe’s top competition. Last season Tottenham bowed out of the Champiuons League at the group stage, something Arsene Wenger has never done, but somehow that was okay. Arsenal lost in the round of 16, to Bayern Munich, and that was somehow a massive football failure.

    A different and ridiculous standard is applied to Arsene Wenger personally and Arsenal as a club, because they do things differently. I like having the same manager and the same players year in and year out. I do not think buying the title, which is what Chelsea, Man U, and Man City have done for the last decade, is something that deserves praise. money is part of the game and I don’t begrudge those sides their resources or their spending, but Arsenal fans need to understand that it’s not 1991 anymore and the Arsenal is no longer the second most financially potent club in the league. They are now fourth, fifth, or sixth depending on just how much non-football money Everton’s, Tottenham’s, and Liverpool’s owners are willing tp put into their clubs. A .ot of theresnetment seems to stem from fans being angry that their billionaireowner is not willing to prop up the club financially when other owners are.
    Too bad. Football clubs are not all toys for oligarchs; some are run as businesses; multi-billion pound businesses and whinging about that is both stupid and counter productive.

    1. What different standard is applied to Arsene and Arsenal? which top club keeps a manager for 13 years with no success?

      The only thing different with Arsenal is that Arsene has a job for life win or loose.

    2. A sound lecture but some of our fans are too thick. We must send them on loan. I’m surprised they even thumb you down.

  7. Of course Ozil will always hide his ineptitude behavior behind the fact that he is been criticize. In time memorial when one is been criticized, it either brings the best or worst in a person. He should not worry he will get a pat in the back for his ineptitude. The fans have had their back for more than 4 seasons what good has it done oh consistent fourth place then falling down the grid to fifth or maybe relegation. It’s only in Arsenal that I see we are comfortable in failure, yes the players are criticize not out of hate but love because we want the best from them, but of course some here feels venting out anger means we do not support them no it’s because we do that why we says it they way we see it. Ozil and rest of the team should get their act together and will get the blessings of fans but do not expect much from them under this management the sooner we aspect it the better for us fans except we are willing to do needful.

  8. How about Ozil and the others, who according to them, are unfairly criticised man up and perform on the field to prove the doubters wrong. They need to spend less effort on social media and more on the training ground and during matches. Show us as Pires stated that they are proud to wear the shirt and represent the Arsenal!

  9. You seem to be sidewiping the first issue. The old players had completely different games as the ball is now a third lighter and the other 11 are also much better.. The pace in the U.K is what attracts the world to watch us so THROUGH balls are harder to play. I understand that you are saying but you won’t get ozil to resign a new contract. Remember why he left Madrid ??? He said he needed to feel WANTED so the ex players are getting rid of Ozil. THANK YOU SO GO AND GET YOUR PAY CHEQUE FROM YOU NEW !!!!!!!!!!!!

  10. Hard to be positive after 13 years of failings… You cant call that a “cycle”… that perpetual failure. and when Wenger extended for 2 years, we all knew its was going to be another 2 miserable seasons. everything is going according to script.

    To the guy with the rather long post above trying to defend the indefensible….. no one is asking Arsenal to spend money like City or Chelsea… We just want the team to compete. Leceister showed it can be done and Arsenal has a far bigger budget than Leceister. We dont mind losing a game, but losing like what happened at Anfield is unacceptable and it has happened to often in recent seasons. PS. Alexis Sanhez is the only player at Arsenal with the spirit needed to lift the club..

  11. I now guess we are entering into the “self reflection” part of the season when we are told by the players they have been doing a lot of soul searching and realise that they have done precisely nothing to earn their ridiculous salaries – generally this comes towards the end of the season normally which hints at something of a crisis at the club.
    In response to this article and statement by Mesut Ozil we don’t need to know him personally to see that he is a greedy, lazy, disinterested and self serving waste of space that has done so little for the club and its fans its only slightly less laughable than Wenger’s statement about “that he could have joined PSG in the summer. To be honest if he had made that move there would be very few you would hear complaining about it.

  12. we need a new manager that will instill confidence into these players.
    Wenger has become a laughing stock among football worlds

  13. The fans tried blind support for years. What did that result in? The same old story. We want a new story and only the fans can try to break the habit of blind support for Wenger that the owner can not seem to break.

    If you support dysfunction you become part of the problem Sam.

  14. I think people have to realise that Ozil will never be the type of player who runs back and helps the defence out, there should be other players to do that. His job is to create chances, which he does well. Also, if you look at the stats he does more running than most players. Let Ozil do what he is good at doing but some of the other players have to raise their games and make more of the chance that Ozil creates. The germany manager wouldn’t keep playing him if he wasn’t doing his job.

  15. I love how ozil loves the club.. No matter what anyone says… He’s loyal and I love his loyalty. He loves Arsenal and he loves the fans the way the fans loves him. So I think all these so called legends should get off his back. He helped Ronaldo with most of his assists during his time at Real Madrid, so I think the players at Arsenal are not world class. Maybe that’s why he’s the way he is..I stand with Mesut Ozil.

  16. I don’t understand when people say that Arsenal shouldn’t spend like city e.t.c. Arsene Wenger is the 5th highest spending manager in Europe of the last decade, behind Conte, guardiola mourinho. The problem is Wenger’s strategy, not spending. Tottenham are in a similar place to us last year. New stadium, young squad, smaller budget. But nobody can deny they have been serious title contenders. Let’s be real please

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