Henrikh Mkhitaryan has just had his Arsenal contract terminated so that he can join AS Roma for free permanently (BBC).
It is good news for Arsenal as he has now freed up space on their wage budget for another player to come in.
One player that needs to do the same thing probably even more than Mkhitaryan is Mesut Ozil.
The German remains Arsenal’s top earner and one of the players who refused to take a pay cut when the club asked all their team members to do so.
We understand that playing football is his job and that’s how he puts food on the table for his family.
But being involved in the games with your teammates is one way that footballers remain happy.
Money, they say, isn’t everything and that has proven so for the likes of Alexis Sanchez who took a huge pay cut to join Inter Milan and I suspect that Mkhitaryan will have done the same thing because teams in Italy rarely pay as much money as Arsenal or other English sides do.
I wonder if Ozil ever thinks of his reputation when he hangs up his boots, if he does and still wants to stay on the bench at Arsenal just to make money, then that says a lot about his character.
I truly hope that Mkhitaryan’s recent decision will influence Ozil a little and he will walk out of Arsenal with some pride.
An article from Ime
