It has been a great return to action from injury so far for the Arsenal and Germany international star Mesut Ozil. Our number 11 has taken a lot of stick from the critics since he signed for the Gunners from Real Madrid 18 months ago and was certainly under pressure to perform.
And with the Gunners having plenty of cut and thrust in attack and with Santi Cazorla back in the sparkling form of his debut season, a lot of us were wondering whether Ozil would struggle to get back into the starting line-up. But after a brief sub appearance in our win over Stoke and not featuring against Man City, Ozil impressed away to Brighton in the FA cup, scoring a good goal to help us to progress.
And then he was even better against Aston Villa at the weekend, scoring another goal, providing an assist and earning himself a Man of the Match award, despite being played out wide rather than his preferred central role. That role on the flanks is why his fellow Gunner and German, Per Mertesacker, was doubly pleased with his performance, as an ESPN report shows. And our giant defender feels that his team mate could be scoring goals like this on a regular basis for Arsenal, if he was just a bit more selfish in those advanced positions he gets into. He does appear to have a cool head in front of goal after all.
Our BFG said, “You can see he is dangerous and has pace when he really wants he is so quick, and he caused a lot of trouble, and was always a threat.
“Sometimes I wish he is more selfish in front of the goal, as you can see when he breaks through the lines, he should have scored instead of looking for another player.
“It was not on his best position in my opinion, he played more on the left side, but he can play anywhere up front. But it is good for him to get back his fitness maybe on the wing he is doing a bit more defensive work as well.
“He suffered [from tiredness] a bit at the end of the game, but he always looked dangerous, was always available. He always wants the ball and wants to create something.”
Ozil has never really been known as a prolific scorer, although he has reached double figures twice for Real Madrid and once for Werder Bremen and got seven for us in his injury hit first season. Maybe it is because he was known as an assist master and playing with Ronaldo he was certainly encouraged to set his team mate up, but would Ozil be better off being a bit more selfish with the Gunners?
I think Mertz should concentrate on improving his own game, and leave Ozil’s positioning or lack of it to Le Professeur and the JustArsenal team 😉
i thought he made good decisions in the final 3rd against Villa. Have no idea what Mertesacker is talking about…
Özil just seems to have his confidence back. He’s being the creative genius we signed him for and scoring on top of that. It’s only been a couple games so he has to consistently show this form but the signs are there.
Personally I can’t wait till Alexis and Özil are finally on the field at the same time.
They’ve been on the field for several games earlier in the season. There was even a rumour from the Chile media that Sanchez is frustrated with Arsenal players for not doing enough, especially with Ozil, LoL 😀
Sounds as if Chilean media ain’t no different to our scum, excerpts below from Alexis’s own lips.
La Tercera 29/12/14
A hero to the people of Chile, Sanchez also touched on why he doesn’t give many interviews despite being such a high profile individual in his homeland.
“I’m just not very comfortable giving interviews. I know it’s important and I understand and respect a lot the work of media. But sometimes I see a lot of lies. Some of the press in Chile just keeps makes stuff up out of nowhere, giving false information and then the rest of the world just replicates the lies.
“It’s hard for people to distinguish between the serious stuff and the rest. There are some reports that have done a lot of harm in my private and professional life. I wish there was a bit more of respect for the truth; in my case, that I’m a person that represents Chile abroad and that tries to do his best”.
“I have arrived in a league that I love, my club is fantastic with great teammates, a world-renowned coach who really cares about his players… everyone is great! And I’ve recently begun exploring the city more, which is very beautiful and I am enjoying it a lot”.
“Being ‘the star’ is all relative, I don’t agree [that I am]. We have a squad with lots of great players, world class ones, World Cup winners with Germany and other players who play for England or France. In this group I’m just another player”.
“I’ve been lucky to start well but you don’t give the book a title until you’ve finished writing it.”
god, i love sanchez’ humility.
Yeah but not with Özil in form. He was tired, out of shape and unmotivated. Özil at the beginning of the season and now is a night and day difference and since he’s been back Alexis and him really haven’t been on the field at the same time.
Once mesut ozil creates goals, and score goals it doesnt matter to me! Coyg!
Speaking of Ozil and our upcoming derby with Spuds.
The other day there was an article here about us getting Lloris. I commented that Levy would never transfer him to us and how he tried to scupper the Ozil transfer by calling Real Madrid. Well, transfer night showed again what kind of person he is. Spurs wanted desperately to get rid of Adebayor. Adebayor wanted to go to West Ham. Everything was ready but Levy at last minute stopped the transfer out of petty hatred of West Ham. One of the reasons I can’t stand Spurs.
Let’s kick the Spuds butts on the weekend. For ourselves. For the Premier League and For Pride.
0-3 to Arsenal
COYG
Says it all really doesn’t it with Spurs seeing WH as a big threat to their ambitions. I’ll get thumbed down massively here but if pressed right now I’d take a draw at the weekend. I really like our run in after this weekend with only Man U away and Chelsea home as the obvious difficult games in our last 14 matches. The spuds have Liverpool, Man U, Soton, Everton away, other away games at relegation affected teams such as Burnley and QPR, a home derby against WH and a visit from Man City at the business end of the season.
I really must say again how impressed i am with hector bellerin,and his improvement! Coyg!
You might have seen Gary Neville do a nice piece of punditry regarding our Hector. Neville is a decent pundit regardless but when he talks about full-backs you tend to take notice. The huge and rapid improvement between the rookie away to Dortmund and the seasoned pro performances against City and Villa really grabbed his attention. I saw a Chelski post a few weeks ago saying “who the f**k is Hector Bellerin”? I laughed for two reasons; one because it showed his ignorance in not knowing the first thing about football outside of his Chelski first X1 and secondly because I thought, mark my words son, give it a few more months and you will know all about our young maestro.
Bellerin need to go on a loan to gain more experience…..
hafiz: coming up with click bait.
hafiz likes thumbs, no matter green or red.
Definitely think Ozil needs to shoot more, he seems a calm finisher when he does, however, I would not like to change his game to much.
If anyone needs to be more selfish i think its Giroud, too many times he passes when he has a clear shot on goal.
I agree re Ozil. One thing I would say regarding Giroud – I did some stats comparisons with the comparable strikers/centre forwards for the 4 teams in front of us (Costa, Dzeko, RvP and Pelle) and was genuinely shocked. Using the “per 90 minutes metrics” he ranked first in total shots, % duels won, most forward passes, fouls against, interceptions and tackles won. And when I say first I mean by a very significant margin. Perhaps the most surprising stat is goals; he is at 0.92 goals per 90 minutes at the moment, just behind Costa on 0.96 and miles ahead of the rest. He was 1st in 6 of the 13 categories I looked at and 2nd in all the rest (assists, chances created, aerial duels won, key passes).
I wish him well for the rest of the season but these sort of stats are unchartered territory for him, especially the goals/90 min stat – over double his stat for last season. I can’t see him maintaining this but if he even gets close to maintaining it there will need to be a major re-assessment of his status and value to the club because he generally gets a raw deal from the virtual reality football managers on here and other sites.
Ozil can be as lethal as Fabregas.
Fabregas loads of assists and scores goals. I believe Ozil is as good as Fabregas (when Ozil is at his best and playing CAM). But as the article suggests has scored in double digits can increase his goal tally too.
What would really make Ozil stand out is getting a WC Striker. Giroud and Welbeck are good goal scorers but miss a lot of chances. Fabregas has Costa. Ozil could really use a top striker who can score every game and take advantage of Ozil’s great passes
If we sell Podolski, Jenkison and Sanogo in the Summer we could use the money towards a Top striker and Top DM.
With a Top Striker and Top DM, I believe we can challenge for PL and Champions League.
Just 2 players are needed (to be greedy, another LB and Top GK would be nice too)
Agreed we need a top striker to lead the attack and a top DM to protect the back 4
we should definitely go for another LB as well….Monreal is not good enough and Gibbs is injury prone….
A top Gk is required….Ospina and Sheez make a good number 2 or good backups…
You normally list the WC striker line-ups at other clubs; who should we make a cheeky bid for? Dzeko, Jovetic, Falcao, Drogba, Remy? Maybe Balotelli? Don’t tell me – Cavani. Or maybe the most recent flavour of the months from Serie A and Ligue 1, Dylaba or Lacazette? You do know the chief beneficiary of Ozil’s assists at Real Madrid was one of their wide forwards called Ronaldo. For Ronaldo read Sanchez or Walcott – our own lower-grade bargain basement CR7s.
Arsenal best finisher Poldi is scoring goals for fun at Inter.. has been left out of Inter’s europa squad..as he deserves more rest after scoring one too many goals
Hafiz – I agree with you, loaning Podolski out was the right decision but I take no pleasure in the guy bombing within a month of getting there.