It should not be the case, but I really think that one of the reasons why Mesut Ozil has not exactly lit up the pitch for Arsenal yet this season could be his fitness. In fact, Per Mertesacker seems to be the only one of the Wor5ld Cup winning Gunners who has been professional enough to come back and get himself right for his club.
Ozil and Lukas Podolski partied like it was 1999 and I think part of there heads are still in Brazil. Podolski has not played so we don’t really know how fit the striker is, but Ozil is a major part of Arsene Wenger’s plans so the Frenchman would play him even if he is not fully fit.
And there is certainly evidence that the 25-year old midfielder is not quite up to speed yet. If you go onto Squawka.com or another stats providing site, you can look at the performance of Ozil against Man City compared to that of Jack Wilshere, the Arsenal midfielder who was rightly named as Man of the Match. And you might get a bit of a shock.
Up until around the 50 minute mark, their performance stats are almost the same, but then Jack’s takes off while Mesut’s tails off. As the game opened up, the fully fit and in form Wilshere was able to really take advantage, while Ozil just need not seem to have the legs.
His shooting especially looked like that of a tired player, but he actually created more chances and had more attempts than Wilshere. He was frustrating but I will say again that we should stop judging him on how much he cost the club and just have a bit of patience and appreciate what he does bring us, which is a big bag of class on the ball. Give Ozil a month and I am confident that he will be having a huge influence on our games, especially if Wenger brings him back off the wing and into his favourite number 10 role.