Mesut Ozil came close to leaving on deadline day and his days are surely numbered.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was reportedly ready to green-light Mesut Ozil’s departure from the club on transfer deadline day.
According to the Daily Mirror, the German playmaker was the subject of a late offer from a club in Qatar, but the club blocked his exit due to there not being enough time to sign a replacement.
This is despite the Mirror adding that Arteta might otherwise have been ready to axe Ozil, which makes sense after seeing how poorly he played against Burnley in Sunday’s Premier League stalemate.
The former Real Madrid man was anonymous at Turf Moor, getting subbed off after 63 minutes, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that talk of a revival under new manager Arteta was perhaps premature.
Ozil has not looked good enough for Arsenal for some time now, and if he can’t turn up in a game like this, it’s absolutely right that the club look to offload him in the summer.
It remains to be seen if Ozil can perhaps revive his Gunners career in the coming months before the next transfer window, but we’re yet to see another performance like that hugely promising one in the 2-0 win over Manchester United on New Year’s Day.
That’s the Ozil that we all want to see, but the Mirror’s report above perhaps suggests Arteta no longer thinks we’re likely to see it again.
Do we need his replacement?utter nonsense as we play with ten men.Trust me, he will remain at AFC to see the back of Mikel as was done to Arsene and Unai.
Another one of the several mud-laden missile meant for Ozil. He has a huge target painted on his back (and front too) without a doubt.
That said, this could be true or just another fabrication of the dark heart of a journo. Ozil has not impressed many. No he hasn’t. The results have not been too good for the club. No. But that is a reflection of the whole team, not an individual player, of which Ozil is an important part.
That the coach keeps playing him is, to me, testament to his confidence that, somewhere in there, the same man that has a magic brain to unlock the tightest defence, is waiting to do it again. They say form is temporary, class is permanent. Arteta is giving a nod to that by selecting Ozil and allowing him to play for so long, in hope that the man will show up.
I have no doubt that he might be shipped off to some far away land in the summer, but he is here now. So we are stuck with him and we better make the best use of him.
For me, I will take this with a liberal pinch of salt.
You know the problem with some people here is when they dont like someone or something,they want the whole world to accept that and they think they know better than the manager.
Players many thought were finished are shining again,the examples xhaka,mustafi,torreira,luiz etc.MA is stabilizing the defence that could be seen and that is why you see these players doing their jobs well.
On the offensive side,MA said a few weeks ago that ozil cant do it alone and needs the structure and players to help him and i wont say anymore than that.
And people questioning MA’s balls should understand thta he has them.He had the balls to accept this job.He had the balls to play mustafi and xhaka.So if ozil underperforms he will eventually be dropped please dont question the ruthlessness of MA.
Ozil is past his prime and Arteta has given him plenty of opportunities to entrench himself in the team.
Arteta’s patience must be wearing thin, particularly now that his honeymoon with the fans, who believe everything is the fault of the head coach, appears over.
Ozil has survived Wenger, Emery and Ljundberg thus far, so even if not selected he will see out his contract on the bench with his London lifestyle, unless some rich Qatar team can match his wages.
We still need Ozil’s MAGICAL BRAIN to produce DEFENSE-SPLITTING PASSES and his VISIONARY CREATIVITY is second to none
The likes of Podolski, Giroud, Walcott, Sanchez, Perez, Aubameyang, Lacazette, Martinelli and Pepe are UNWORTHY to receive Ozil’s EXTRAORDINARY assists
Arsenal should REJECT any offer for him and WAIT until he shows his DAZZLING SKILLS again. He is a WORLD CLASS creative attacking midfielder, so his current form is just TEMPORARY and he will be UNLOCKING BIG TEAMS’ defenses SOON
Lol
Should have let him go and kept smith-rowe.
Congrats Mikel, you have achieved a milestone with this team, second lowest wins after 25 games since the 1912/13 season for an Arsenal team. Continue playing the crap midfield, expecting winning results! The man seems deluded like his predecessors. Good luck mate.
Gotanidea you mean we should wait for Ozil best performance like the second coming of Jesus Christ?, he hasn’t produce a standout performance since he’s back in the team, I don’t blame Emery from dropping him. the guy has pass his prime. we should cut him lose.
Yup. I have no idea why his detractors can’t see his visionary playmaking skills
If we sell him now, his price tag will be low. So better wait until his market value returns to 100 M
But he is a SHIRT SELLING GENIUS.
What more do you guys want?. We have never had a player in our whole history that was World class at Selling Jerseys. 🤣
Have some fairness.
Mesut is finished a playmaker that cannot receive the ball with his back to goal and drive a defence but he will rather be a looking for a side pass or backward pass, a complete liablility, cannot score, dribble or even his primary duties assist, so wat the usefulness of keeping this flop of a player, for long period yesterday he disappeared I don’t know why arteta kept ceballos on the bench and brought on all this kids, they already played midweek so u owe them no match time, bring in Pepe for lacazette, ceballos for ozil simple #i hope arteta does not break the team bond he is building by his nonsense decision making
Are we really going to turn this to another Ozil show , he wasn’t the only one that was poor in the Burnely game . His replacement was just as bad .Lacazette as been poor for a year now but no one is jumping on his case like this , we keep covering up for him with excuses that he works hard but a striker that doesn’t score in an away for for a whole year is terrible.
Ozil is past it , that’s clear for everyone to see but using him as the scapegoat is getting boring . I would have been glad if he had been sold too but he’s here for now so accept it .
If you a player is not having an impact in the department they specialise in then they are at a minimum expected to compensate. Laca has been sh!t as a striker this season but he has kept working hard. This has bought him time with the fans. But it is wearing off now. He has to start doing his job of scoring goals. No doubt.
On the other hand we have The Shirt Selling Genius. Been a joke since his 2015 purple patch. Help the club to ransom. Been poor 80% of the time since then. His go to “Assist stats” are nonexistent etc.
On top of that he is not compensating to cover for his lack of Assists. Not scoring. Not hardworking, disappears in most games, No impact whatsoever etc.
If he was not getting Assists but was instead working hard then he would also be buying some time from fans.
But he is as useful In the team as he is when Out of it.
But he is our most senior player. Our only world class player. Our highest paid player etc..
Watching the decline of Arsenal is quite sad. There are arguments such as Mustafi was OK Today, Mustafi poor today, Xhaka OK, Xhaka poor. What is covered over is a bigger question. There are some players not up to Arsenal standards whatsoever any more and it would be impossible for the team with them playing to challenge for the Premier League. Mustafi, Ozil, Luiz, Xhaka, Socratis, Holding, all are just not good enough any more. Some were good, some were never good enough. We are just about where we belong with the team we are putting out. While Arteta bigs up those players, he is in reality sabotaging himself…… because they are not good enough. I have a lot of time for Arteta, but he has players who will pull the rug from under his feet and until he gets a ruthless streak and leaves those players who are beneath standard OUT of the team (club), they will underperform at the higher levels and leave us floundering. Arteta prune the tree before it dies and before you damage yourself beyond repair. Challenge the Kroenkes.
Then he will have to leave out the entire team… or lay with 3 or 4 players only
Hi Sean,
I agree with much of what you have written. It’s an interesting point that you make about Arteta and a lack of ruthlessness. I appreciated his wipe the slate clean approach and after the games he has had in charge of the team he may now have a much better idea about who he can and can’t trust to deliver. A poor quality game was always going to bring the Arteta out moaners but he hasn’t got an awful lot to work with. Injuries and two untimely red cards and he has been somewhat scuppered by underwhelming senior players and the rawness of the youth still finding their way. But like you, I think he has real potential
Arsenal have been so poorly run now that whilst I was excited by a new dawn under Emery, it soon became apparent that he wasn’t a good fit. The fact that there was this terrible interim period with Freddie shows that at the top of the club there was no cohesion between Emery’s departure and Arteta’s appointment. This has to be eradicated and Kroenke has to take all of the responsibility for the crisis that his ownership has wreaked upon us; lack of investment, direction and scouting being the main concerns.
For some, the expectation is that Ozil will create a goal or score one every time he touches the ball. He had some good moments in the firat half and died with the REST OF THE TEAM in the latter part of the first half and the second.
Fair comments Sean but to my mind Auba deserves to be mentioned for his failure to put away two very good chances against Burnley in the first twenty mins.His goal tally this season seems to make him immune from criticism, but the chances were created by others who in turn have been slated by our fickle fans.Funny old game ,funny old world.On a more serious note I really hope the injury to young Saka is not too bad.He has been a breath of fresh air in what has been , thus far,a very disappointing season.
👍 Agree Grandad, too many opportunities required for each goal scored; not ruthless or clinical enough.
Ozil is the big problem in this team why we play the way we do. We are playing with 10 men when he is in the team. Players that are not good enough have improved their performances, like xhaka, mustaffi, Bellerin and socrates but they are still not good enough for a top Arsenal team. Ozil has not improved at all and isn’t good enough either, he is too ponderous.
this is the very reason i am beginning to have doubts over artetas skills as a manager. ozil is ineffective , so we did not need to replace him at all . we are much better off without him , all players come to an end, it is natural, and good luck to mesut. but if arteta was frightened to let ozil go then i question his guts.joe willock, who, in mu opinion, is pretty average, would be far more effective than mesut these days. nothing against mesut, but he is in the worst form of his life , totally useless to the club.i lay the blame firmly at artetas feet for not having the courage to let mesut go.
Arteta vetoed the move, so I have no idea why they are saying Arteta was willing to sell only he couldn’t find someone to come in in his place. Nothing to suggest that, a team made a late move and we rebuffed it, end of. We have maybe three or four players that can play as an advanced midfielder or just behind the strikers, we’ve seen Cabellos, Guendouzi, Willock, Torreira all playing there this season. Pepe and Martinelli, some say Laca, could probably play it if we needed it. We loaned Rowe who plays there sometimes. This story is nonsense, not much for Arsenal to complain about as defending is slowly improving and strikers will start scoring, fans are all on the managers side, I know, let’s go with Ozil, let’s target him until we can target one of the other areas and until we can give the manager a hard time. Do you guys really think Arteta is that two faced, put an arm around Ozil and ask him to cover more ground with the team, tell him that everyone has a fresh start to impress him for time being, then try to get him out a few weeks down the line only we couldn’t find a replacement. Does that sound like Arteta.