Unai Emery has reiterated that he helped Mesut Ozil as much as he could while he was the manager of Arsenal.
The German midfielder was an important member of the Arsenal first-team under the management of Arsene Wenger, but the change of management brought about a change of tactics.
Emery needed Ozil to be more physical, but the German has never been known for his physical attributes. The Spaniard managed to get some good performances from him while he could, but also sidelined him on different occasions.
Mikel Arteta similarly trusted the German in his first few games as the manager of Arsenal, but he has now axed him completely from his team.
Emery was speaking to Football.London recently about Ozil and said that he did what he could with the German when he was the manager of Arsenal and cannot comment on what the issue is now.
He said: “I worked for one and a half years with Mesut and tried to help him, support him and achieve the performances for the team with him.
“Now I don’t know what the problems are as I am very concentrated and focused with Villarreal.
“I follow every Arsenal match but I don’t know what the problems are with the team or the players. I can only speak about Mesut Ozil when I was with him there and I tried to achieve the best performances with him.”
Emery was the first Arsenal coach to have problems with Ozil, and as they say; the rest is history. Let us hope the saga will come to an amicable end this month.
Darren N