Arsenal’s biggest ever signing Mesut Ozil has been called lazy and accused of going missing during games due to his laid back attitude on the pitch, but the German international has no interest in listening to anyone outside the club.
“If you look at my statistics, I am one of the players who covers the most distance,” Ozil told TalkSport. “Also, if you look at the stats in terms of assists and creating chances, they are all pretty good. I know some people might want me to make X-number of passes – but people often miss what goes on off the ball.
“I’m not really bothered what critics say. What’s important is what the manager and coaching staff think. I am a team player, I just care about always giving 100 per cent for the team.”
Since Ozil was out injured, he looks much stronger and fitter, He really looks like he is much more capable of fending off the physical Premiership defenders, and he admits that the Gunners are looking much more like a title winning unit, although it may be a bit late for this season.
“It would be wrong to talk about winning the title, because it is not in our hands,” he says. “Our goal is to win every game until the end of the season, whether it be in the FA Cup or Premier League. It is a bit frustrating really, because we have to hope Chelsea slip up, but all we can do is focus on our game.”
“We have the quality of players,” he says. “We had a lot of injury problems at the start of the season, but now that just about everyone has recovered, you can see our quality. Just look at the performance we displayed against Liverpool [in April’s 4-1 win]. When we have a fit squad, we are capable of beating anyone and are a genuine title contender. We have just been a bit unlucky in terms of injuries.”
With a stronger Ozil, and all our injured players back, we can really look forward to a much more succesful season next time around, but first off all we have to finish this season strongly to give us extra confidence for the next campaign….