If you managed to catch the game against Chivas last night or even the highlights yesterday, you would’ve noticed that star man Mesut Ozil was present at the game to watch his teammates on display out in LA. Arsenal won the match 3-1 and it was a game that showed that some players are already getting back to full fitness and showing signs of quality, despite having only a few weeks training.
Ozil may not have featured for the Gunners yesterday but he was present on the bench with his colleagues to watch the team in action. He tweeted after the game that it wouldn’t be long before he returns to full training now that he has finished his holiday, although I distinctively remember Arsene Wenger previously saying that Ozil and other key players wouldn’t return to training until the final week prior to the season opener.
Wenger had said that Ozil would be one of the last players to return to pre-season training alongside Koscielny and Giroud, given how far he got with Germany at Euro 2016, however as Ramsey has now returned to training, I can’t imagine Ozil being much further behind in the schedule. Koscielny and Giroud aren’t expected to link back up with the Gunners until next week, although Koscielny may be asked to return earlier due to the injuries in defence.
Everybody knows how important Ozil is to this Arsenal side and a large part of our success in matches comes from his creative ability. We will need to be in full swing against the likes of Liverpool and Leicester, so having a fully fit Ozil would certainly help our chances.
As Ozil has already linked up with the squad’s tour, I’m sure he will want to get back to playing as soon as possible, so what’s really stopping Wenger from allowing Ozil to get game time? It may be wise for such a key player, who is likely to play the majority of games next season, to have a longer rest over the course of the summer, but a bit of light training surely would help Wenger’s cause of having as many fit players available for the Premier League opener as possible. With such a tough start ahead of us, an early return for Ozil may be exactly what we need!
By AH
Ozil brings a bit of swagger to the arsenal attack
I can’t believe anyone in his or her right mind would turn you down for your comment @vinjoe
We really could do with him to be ready to face Liverpool, or at least be on the bench in case we are losing. Surely he will be fit enough to play half an hour?
This season, Ozil will beat Henry’s assist record
He should have done it last season but Theo/Giroud had a bad string of matches
Theo always has a bad stretch of matches and Giroud is too inconsistent, hopefully we’ll get in another striker who can get thier boots on the end of Ozil’s perfect passing, if not its going to be the same story as last season…or worse
Glad to see Ozil back with the team, although although still not my choice to play behind the striker, more wengers choice.
Funny thing is the gentleman who i think is most suited played in the pre-season game, they call him the LITTLE MAGICIAN, SANTI CAZORLA, welcome back, in the earlier part of our game our passes were going astray losing the ball too frequently, then santi started drifting back closer to Xhaka and Coquelin and started to get the passes going, which then provided us with chances. He is the player i would want to see behind our striker, he actually looked like he wanted to take on all yesterday.
Glad to see him back!!