I do not mind the former Arsenal and Germany keeper Jens Lehmann having his say on the club by any means. The 45-year old did play 200 games for Arsenal and was a part of that historic invincibles season when we last lifted the Premier League trophy.
I just wonder whether he is right to have a go at his fellow countryman Mesut Ozil and suggest that our attacking midfielder has still got a lot to prove to the Arsenal fans and the football world in general, especially in the bigger and more important games.
As reported by The Mirror, Lehmann did say some good things about Ozil, calling him a fantastic player, but he went on to say that the former Real Madrid man too often tends to go missing when we really need him and suggests that it is a mental issue with Ozil.
Lehmann said, “Everyone knows he can be a fantastic player. But you need to be a fantastic player in the big games. You don’t need to be a fantastic player in the small games and mediocre player in the big games.
“He can definitely do that but now he must prove it. You need to know how to think and how to programme yourself.
“Of course he can improve. You can’t get better on the day that you retire from football – but you can every day before that.”
I’m not sure Jens, because Ozil was really looking back to his best in the second half of the season, having used his time on the sidelines due to a knee injury to get in the gym and improve his strength in order to cope better with the rigours of the English game.
Ozil has enough critics in the media from the likes of Michael Owen and Paul Scholes, without players connected to Arsenal getting on his back as well. I think Lehmann may be suffering from the old case of not really getting how much Ozil gives to the team because of the way he seems languid on the pitch.
I have just looked back at my player ratings towards the end of last season and I gave the Man of the Match award to Ozil in the FA cup semi/final and the BPL games against Chelsea and Liverpool and they were certainly big games, so was Lehmann wrong to accuse the German of not performing in the big games?