Cazorla Form Doesn’t Spell Ozil Doom ! by JA
Hello guys.Hope you’re having a great week….
Cazorla is in an unbelievable vein of form at this point in the season. So good that some people think it’s by default going to relegate Ozil to the bench. What most of you fail to realize is that whereas Santi is most effective down the middle, Mesut can be effective from any point in behind the striker.That means whether he’s in the middle, left or right, he can be equally effective.
You’re going to say that his best performances have come when he goes down the middle, but then even when he’s in the middle, he becomes more effective as he drifts outside.
That a player starts on a flank doesn’t mean he’s been deployed as a winger. Ozil can be deployed on the right in the place of Oxlade in games where we don’t need both flanks (which is most games at arsenal). Simple example; when City had a real winger on the left, Bellerin and Oxlade looked really comfortable because they could easily stop Milner and Clichy without being isolated. Jovetic came on, always looking to cut inside, and finally he could move Oxlade inwards and let Bellerin tussle it out with Clichy, hence City had more dangerous crosses from the left in the second half.
I rarely see Ozil play a through ball but he does play a lot of dangerous passes. And for a passer, position is not really an issue. In fact, I believe Ozil on the right would make Sanchez more effective.
I also see a lot of people saying Ozil isn’t playing well because he doesn’t have a quick striker to play through balls to….
1) When were his assists entirely dependent on a through ball to a quick striker? Because even at Madrid, he often assisted with a cut back rather than a through pass.
2) I’ll have you know, in soccer, the run makes the pass. Even a slow Giroud can run onto a through pass if he had the same idea before the pass was played. I’ve seen him do it a lot.
Ozil don’t really have to go down the middle to be effective. I actually remember Wenger shunting Ozil out wide against Napoli and putting Rosicky and Cazorla in the middle, and it worked wonders. Take the blinkers off, your imagination off, and see the real possibilities with all the players we have. Playing Ospina at center forward is putting players out of position but Ozil is at home in any attacking position.
Have a great week.
Joe