Mesut Ozil has become one player that everyone loves to hate at the moment.
The German has hardly put a foot right when he is on the pitch, yet trouble doesn’t seem to be far away from him when he is off it.
He has been in decline since he signed his current Arsenal deal in 2018 and there seems to be no way back into the Arsenal team for him now after being frozen out during the restart.
The German is Arsenal’s top earner, he doesn’t play much, yet he rejected a year-long pay cut that the club had begged the team to take to cushion the effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
That decision has brought him even more criticism, but his friend and former Arsenal teammate Lukas Podolski, has defended his character.
The German claims that Ozil isn’t such a bad guy as the current state of things makes him look and that his current situation at Arsenal is a loss-loss for everyone.
‘He’s good enough (to be their main man) with support from the coach and the team, but something has happened with the club, you can feel that,’ Podolski told the Athletic.
‘Is he in a disagreement with the club? When I talk to him, we don’t want to talk to him about that kind of stuff. It’s his situation, him and his agent have to deal with that.
‘He’s a good character — he’s not an a**hole. He doesn’t do interviews where he speaks badly of his team-mates or of Arsenal and it’s a shame we have this situation because everyone is losing. Ozil is sat in the stands, Arsenal are paying him and there is no winner.’
