Ozil Saves Arsenal 3 Million! By Dan Smith
I have long said that I don’t think that Stan Kroenke has the ambition to take Arsenal back to our previous levels. As long as he’s in charge we will never win the Premiership, evidenced by the fact we have never been so far away from our previous levels.
My not rating his ability to run a football club though, doesn’t mean I don’t respect him as a businessman. Yes, lots of millionaires inherit wealth from family or their spouse, but it also takes work ethic and a brain. Our owner didn’t achieve what he has done without being smart and ruthless when he needs to be.
Whether it’s the media, shareholders, customers, etc, you need to know how to work the system.
What the American has done for years is to pay some of the very best to be his shield and provide a positive spin on issues, change the narrative, and put focus elsewhere.
For a couple of years now Mesut Ozil has been an example of that. Take the emotion out of things and the situation is as simple as a Billionaire made a deal which he regrets.
In any company you make bad deals, that’s natural, you’re not going to get everything right.
Instead of just writing off the money though, the American has had a paddy and clearly ordered the club to do whatever needs to be done, to recoup as much of the 350,000 pound a week salary back.
In the past year he has lied to his own squad, made 55 staff redundant, took out a loan that the government never intended for a football club, and continues to make it a priority to slash our wage bill.
Even as I write this, there are some who fail to question why this January is being spent cost cutting, and not improving one of worst squads in decades.
All this in the same 12-month span where Silent Stan’s net worth increased by approx. 320 million, and he opened the LA Rams new stadium, the most expensive in the world at 5.5 BILLION DOLLARS!
So, to get his customers to think a player is the greedy one at the club is a PR master stroke.
It’s not often an employer can sack people, make salary cuts, while making millions himself, and yet have some call the employee greedy.
All Ozil and his agent have ever claimed is their intention to honour an agreement which was Arsenal’s proposal. That’s an example of loyalty.
Instead of that being respected Arsenal have tried every underhand trick in the book to save what is pocket monkey to the Kroenke Family.
Mesut Ozil has now told the media in Turkey he is moving to Fenerbahçe with reports in England saying he’s said goodbye to his teammates.
Despite playing a major role in ending the clubs trophy drought, the player leaves with opinion divided among our fan base.
Some call Ozil disloyal for wanting to honour his contract, which is actually an example of loyalty, and something others have been hated on for not doing.
Others feel he’s been greedy to collect 350,000 pound a week even though he hasn’t kicked a ball since March. You would think by some comments that everyone else in our squad, equally underachieving, are on minimum wage.
The perception of greed won’t be helped by the fact that Arsenal are paying him 5 million to rip up his contract. That’s before you even consider what Fenerbahce will be offering him.
But again, what a brilliant PR Spin.
All I care about is; why, having made the decision since the first lockdown that he would be frozen out, do we still have no one better?
Having watched since August, an obvious lack of creativity, why was a player not organised to arrive the moment this transfer window opened?
Why are fans not questioning why the wages you are saving with Ozil, Saliba and Kolasinac not being reinvested? Where is that money going? Instead, one more time, Ozil is portrayed as the greedy one.
Arsenal are again portrayed as this little poor club who have been exploited by a selfish player and immoral advisor because they are having to pay him to leave.
In reality the only greedy party in this situation is……. Arsenal.
Ozil’s ‘pay off’ is in fact less than the money he’s entitled to.
If he wanted, he’s legally entitled to remain in North London till the summer and Arsenal would have to pay him what would amount to approx. 8 million. So Ozil is in fact helping us save 3 million. Yet he’s the greedy one?
Arsenal have done all of this, made such a song and dance to save themselves ……. 3 million?
We have been without our only creative asset for 9 months just so we could save 3 million. 3 million which will now just sit in the bank. Is that the price to jeopardize our reputation for?
If you’re angry with the Ozil camp, then you have been manipulated.
If your boss gave you a pay rise, regretted it, paid you to sit at home, leaked out information about your lawyer, says the only way they can cancel your contract is by paying you a huge sum, would you say to your Billionaire boss, ‘nah, you keep it’?
Does that make you greedy? When was asking for money you are owed being greedy?
Do you think Arsenal would do that for me or you? They see that 60,000 people are willing to pay expensive prices to get into the Emirates. Are they immoral for never saying, ‘this week let’s make the tickets only 5 pounds.’?
Maybe they should turn around and say; ‘TV companies are paying over the odds; we will take only half of what they are offering’.
Sport is a business. The priority is to make as much money as possible but that works both ways.
If Ozil is ‘greedy for asking for 5 million to leave’, then Arsenal are just as bad asking me 60 pounds for a shirt?
Arsenal had a choice.
They could have respected the player’s wishes and got the best out of that resource till the summer. Instead, we paid him to sit at home even though we knew we had no one better. We have had zero plan B on the bench for months. It has led to our worst finish in 25 years and our worst start in longer.
We are boring to watch.
But it’s okay …… we have saved 3 million! 3 million to give to a Billionaire while the team struggles.
And Ozil is the greedy one?
Be Kind in the Comments
Dan
I agree with this completely. Nobody forced Arsenal to give him a new contract. We should have made the best of the situation, instead of throwing our toys out the pram.
Kronke is a businessman and Ozil is a player. So, Kronke is doing what is good for his business, Ozil didn’t do what is good for his career. Besides that, Arteta bought Willian to replace Ozil. It’s not Kronke’s mistake that Willian doesn’t perform to required standards. Arsenal is where it is because of coaches. Arteta bought Mari, Willian, Gabriel, Soares, and Partey. Most if not all are below the required standards. So, do you blame Kronke?
But u are wrong….Ozil did what was best for his career….At his age, the 350k contract was the most he was ever going to get…so why would he walk away from that to go play football for less??? I would exactly what he did if i were in the final years of my career……Please leave Ozil alone….Even if he left halfway thru his contract, it wouldn’t stil have solved the problems of the club.
Ozil was supposed to perform better and show that he’s interested in what was paying him. Instead he would run as if he’s sick. Kronke did well to negotiate a deal that’ll make him £3mil. Good job, Mr. Kronke
Yes , Willian was the cheap option
Would we have got got him if we had to pay a fee ?
Put it this way when Man United needed a creative midfielder they brought Fernandes
Fans thinks that managing a club is like in Fifa21
no responsibility with unlimited funds
And Ozil got paid to give his best performances and his best efforts. Can you VERY HONESTLY say that he did after signing?
This is the best Article I have read in Just Arsenal for a very long time. Dan fantastic article, keep it up. I agree with you on this. Thanks for this article.
I wonder, will this article be written and applauded if the player concerned was a certain willian or pepe suppose they both say they’re not leaving till their contracts end? Or is it just selective sentiments?
Kstix, they have every right to say just that and this is the point you seem to be missing.
MO did not break any clause in his contract and that is the reason Arsenal have tried so many different ways to force him out… including, it seems to you, leaving personal information out for secretaries and cleaners to study at their leisure, in order to leak said information to the media.
Ken, I’m not saying they do not as I’m not saying ozil does not have any right to see out his contract. It’s a contract and it’s legal and binding. What I’m saying is that I hope pepe and willian get the same support from the same fans supporting ozil when they decide to see out their contracts as I know our fan base too well. They have favourites and selective sentimentality. A certain iwobi could do no right in their eyes even if he came in at second half to score the only goal for arsenal at Baku. And ozil is still being praised despite is really poor attitude on the same night. Notice any and every excuse will be tabled to support ozil even conspiracy theories like the club leaking ozil’s contract details on purpose. Or the coaches don’t know how best to use him, or the players around him are shit. It’s everybody’s fault but ozil’s.
Loyalty works both ways. I would support any player, including the players you named, sticking to the terms of his contract regardless what the club might wish.
Those who claimed that Ozil was being greedy for sticking to his contract despite the club wishing him to leave ought to consider the alternative. If a successful player wants to leave on a free despite being tied to a contract, would they say that the club is being greedy for refusing the wishes of the player? If not, why not?
Ozil ended the Trophy Drought, he has fairly enough performed to standard. I fear no one can say the same for Pepe and Willian.
For the umpteenth time, Ozil did not end nothing, he was just lucky to be at the club when we coincidentally won our trophy and it was largely due to the impact of an outstanding Ramsey. Go check the stats leading up to the FA Cup win. Ozil was a huge flop in his first season for arsenal. He only improved the next season when we got sanchez, coincidentally that was his best season and only good season for arsenal. Sanchez made him better.
@Kstix, “Sanches made him better”, therefore other players he played with except the said Sanches are below Ozil’s quality. If not, why can’t they also make him better as Sanches did?
I wonder next time a player wants to leave against Arsenal:s wishes if your preach the word loyalty?
Loyalty is very rare in football Dan, when footballers start playing for free, then we can talk about loyalty. Ozil was nothing short of an opportunist but kudos to him for backing Arsenal into a corner. Ramsey is by far more loyal to Arsenal than ozil ever was, but the club couldn’t offer him a new contract despite that his wage was nowhere near ozil’s. He was let go. I’ll be waiting for your article Dan when pepe or willian refuse to leave, will be interesting to see whom you blame then.
And if a player demands to leave ,I expect you to support them as your saying it’s wrong to honour your contract
Dear Dan
Spot on.
200% agree with you. I never think MO is greedy. That is his salary .. so it’s his.
lets pray that in ESR and Saka we have found our gems.
Thank you Mesut Ozil for all the good and pleasurable times you gave to our club, including helping us break the duck of not winning any trophy for about a decade. We live you and wish the best, you’ll always be on our ❤️
I agree with some aspects, but I do not think Ozil has justified playing for Arsenal even before AW departed. You just have to look at the stats pre and post contract. Arsenal gave him the contract though and they are to blame for that.
The whole Özil situation was a chain of multiple, disastrous events. I could go further but lets just go back few years:
Summer 2017:
Sanchez finished his spectacular season with 30 goals in his name. Best season he’s ever done. It seems evident that Sanchez is not going to renew his contract. At his point he’s only got 1 year left in his contract, and yet Arsenal for some reason refuses to sell him. Özil is also in the same situation although his season wasn’t as that good as Sanchez’.
January 2018:
After Sanchez had a horrible half a season (lethargic, doesn’t seem interested), Arsenal is finally forced to ‘sell’ him. Although, he is not actually sold but swapped with another underperformer, Mkhitaryan – who Arsenal, for some reason, even gives a hefty pay raise from what he earned at United! At the time of Mkhi’s pay raise, he had scored a whopping 2 goals in 22 appearances that season! New Arsenal contract puts Mkhi around 180k a week.
So Sanchez was essentially given free to United, and we got another deadwood on high wages in Mkhitaryan, who still ended up leaving for free in 2020.
We also bought Aubameyang to cushion the Sanchez blow, but that was of course funded by selling Giroud, Walcott, Coquelin.
Now, Arsenal FC were afraid of same happening with Özil, and because they were idiots and didn’t consider selling Özil and Sanchez earlier in the summer (note, at this point Özil was earning maybe 140-150k a week), they panicked (Wenger, Gazidis or both of them) and decided to tie down Özil, whatever means necessary it seemed. Only problem was Özil or his agent ripped off Arsenal executives with those contract demands.
3,5 year deal for a 29 year old of 350 000 pounds a week.
The best paid player in the league until De Gea signed his extension.
I don’t see how Kroenke is responsible for this particular situation though. It was the incompetence of Wenger, Gazidis and whoever were working on those transfers and contract extension caused this massive, MASSIVE waste of wages paid to Özil, Mkhitaryan and losing tens of millions from the possible transfer of Sanchez.
McLovin
Totally agree with your article 👍
I was just about to write something similar adding I believe he was a panic buy at the time. We had been battered at home by Villa with Wenger receiving boos from the crowd.
He panicked and Knew he had to buy big in the transfer window unfortunately he went for Ozil.
Yes the current management have made mistakes, however we are still trying to clear up the mess by Wenger and his sidekick Ivan!!!
@McLovin
To go even further back to 2013, and in regards to in the incompetence of Wenger and Gazidis, why was Ozil signed in the first place?
We did not need yet another attacking midfielder. We already had so many on our books! Not only that, Santi only just joined us 12 months prior, had a brilliant first season, and was a better player than Ozil anyway.
Almost every other position needed strengthening that summer bar attacking midfield. So of course lets spend our entire budget on that position!
“Almost every other position needed strengthening that summer bar attacking midfield. So of course lets spend our entire budget on that position!“
Arsenal’s cash reserves stood at £173m in 2014 so it’s difficult to argue we had no money to sign a striker if that’s your contention.
Squad building was never Wenger’s strongest suit but blaming the lack of funds, even after $plurging 42m on Ozil in 2013, is not the strongest argument to make.
No business in their right mind would spend their entire cash reserves, that’s why it’s called ‘reserves’.
So I am correct in saying either that’s the budget Wenger was given, or that Wenger had a larger budget, but decided to spend less. The budget wouldn’t have been 173m.
I agree with you….but at what point was any of these Ozil’s fault??????
That wasn’t his fault, but laziness, disrespecting our managers, and causing problems at our club was all him.
To go even further back, GG was sacked for being caught with his hand in the till and we, as a club had a drinking culture that was out of control… go back even further and we were accused of buying votes to get promoted to the top division.
It seems The Arsenal survived all of those setbacks as well, so why don’t we just move onwards and upwards?
Not sure what on earth that as to do with Ozil, but ok then.
Ken, other so called executives at Arsenal have cost the Club a lot more and contributed far less than GG.
The sad thing is that the players, part of the drinking culture (which wasn’t just at the Arsenal at that time), playing hung over or worse at the time, put to shame some of the half baked performances from Arsenal players in recent seasons.
@McLovin
Totally agree. Well written.
Agree with a lot of this except the idea that Ozil only wanted to honour his contract – he didn’t care at Real Madrid, did he? Sure, in a sense you can’t blame him for wanting the money, Arsenal’s fault for offering it, but if his contract had been more reasonable he’d have left a while ago.
A lot of blame to go around but it wasn’t Ozil’s loyalty that kept him here. Need to get real
Spot on Davi
Brilliant Davi, couldn’t have said it better
of course Davi. Same thing when people say Messi is loyal. It’s ridiculous. He’s getting paid tons of money, and Barca are very successful. The second any of those things werent true Messi wanted out actually. Loyalty is sticking with your side regardless of money, regardless of success.
so loyalty is a one way street? Just as Messi gets paid tons of money, so also the club is making tons of money based on his name! The club is not there for charity and neither are the players. If a club expects loyalty from the players regardless of money and success, shouldn’t the players expect the loyalty from the club when the players are not doing well for whatever reasons? After all it is a team game!
You’re right the player isn’t there for charity. That’s why they get compensated with millions every year… And in Ozil’s case he was treated like a prince by Wenger. In return, Ozil took advantage of that kindness.
Arsenal could legally drop Ozil and Ozil could legally stay till he gets his full remuneration. Both parties didn’t sue each other, so I don’t think any of them breaches the contract
I’m just waiting until Ozil plays victim again on the media. Arsenal took the wrong decision when they succumbed to the fans’ pressure to extend Ozil’s contract
We’re all waiting for that ozil interview GAI
Day he re-signed, I said one thing. BAD IDEA. And here we are in 2021 and millions upon millions wasted…..
I was extremely disappointed too, when that happened
I agree, and we’ll done to Dan who tell all without fear or favour I totally agree with you big man. Thanks Ozil for all you done for the club including the 3 million even after what you went through. You didn’t deserve such a treatment from a big club like this.
At least it’s all over now and the whole team will start focusing and and performing best because this unfairly treatment that was going on there was the biggest contribution to the club losing every game even at home, now watch Auba starting to score and the team winning more games. This tells you that indeed something not right was done to one of their team mate.
Also, funny thing is Arsenal was afraid of losing Sanchez for free.
Well we sort of did, although we did get his replacement in Mkhitaryan. Irony is, Mkhitaryan ended up leaving for free and yet now, is currenly best player in Serie A.
There’s no need to be kind because arsenal fc is not kind to neither players nor fans, kroenke is incompetent and doesn’t deserve arsenal, this foolishness will continue till big players will start snubbing arsenal like before Ozil came 😡, and I know that arsenal will soon play in championship for the first time, Ozil brought back winning mentality to arsenal and is now rewarded with silly names that should be given to Kroenke and all other guys in the board, screw them all.
I am hoping then that now you feel happy to have cleared that up and can move on. Anyone with a brain knows the contract was Arsenals decision so not his cross to bear- that said, his agent played it right – stalled when Alexis was dicking about and reaped the benefits of the club not being able to countenance 2 superstars leaving at the same time.
It may also not be his fault that his form and ability to effect games went off a cliff and he became a very expensive liability. But.. thats the facts of it. He has been turgid for a long time and forgetting his salary, wasnt good enough to improve a poorly assembled team. 3 Managers in a row found him wanting. You claim this is down to Kroenke – who I would imagine would struggle to name his own first team. He is an investor, not an owner per se, BUT that doesnt mean my eyes have been lying to me. It was clear to see that Ozil had lost his mojo in an ever more competitive premier league.
The main point however, is thank god he has gone. The saga – which has bored me to tears and bought such negativity to Arsenal is finally over. See you Mesut.
I will miss the 2015 version – one of the finest footballing talents I have seen play in the Red and White. Even the 2016-17 version showed glimpses that made you smile and sagely nod. Bugger all since then.
Prim and proper 👍
Dan, let me share my work experience. I informed my boss that I’d like to resign from his company and he offered me a salary increment to keep me there, because my service was highly required at that time
I asked for more money because I had got a job offer from another company and he succumbed to my request. I don’t think both of us could be called greedy, because it was just business as usual
Years later, he found some cheaper and younger employees. My career got stuck there afterwards, yet I accepted the consequences of my previous choice to stay for more money
Eee………
How about there are no new employees….
Y just being bad at your job, more prone to mistakes and laziest at work.
Y boss cant fire y, but sure he can send y to siberia, since y boss dont need y anymore.
The company could’ve fired me if they didn’t need me, as what Arsenal did by dropping Ozil
Not the same as firing! If they had fired him, they would have had to pay his remaining wages after terminating his contract. Instead what they did was to try and browbeat him into leaving Arsenal which he clearly was not willing to do so. Arsenal did all that they could to make him feel unwelcome/unwanted at the club and finally that seems to have paid off for them since they managed to squeeze some of the money that they would have legally owed him if he had stuck around till his contract got over. So yes its a bit rich from fans over here accusing me of being a leach. Giving a contract to a guy and then hounding him out of the club when they had no use for him.
Dropping a player for tactical or performance reason is common, as what the companies did to their employees by blocking the employees’ career progression. Real Madrid did it to Gareth Bale, Bournemouth did it to Ryan Fraser, Man United did it to Lingard and Napoli did it to Arkadiusz Milik
Similar to Ozil’s case, Bale and Lingard were dropped because of their performance issues. Also similar to Ozil, Bale also played his victim card in the interviews
But we have found better replacements have we ?
Havnt
We’ve got Smith-Rowe who can retrieve the ball more often than Ozil due to the youngster’s energy and has been playing with the other hot prospects for many years. We also haven’t tried Ceballos and Willian to play regularly in the CAM position
Moreover, Smith-Rowe’s stronger foot is his right one, which is perfect for Arteta’s left overload tactic. Man City also use De Bruyne to make crosses from the half-space on the right flank, after the opponents are drawn to the left side
That just happend though
Since March who came in who you can say was more creative ?
Every picture of Stan reminds me of Mission Impossible…..I’m about 95% sure he is wearing a rubber mask.
😂😂😂😂 then who do you think is under the rubber mask PJ
Mesut Ozil joined Arsenal from Real Madrid in September 2013 for a fee of 42 million pound. He started on 130 k p/w that quickly rose to 200k p/w and up again to 350k p/w in February 2018. All of this was directed by former Arsenal Manager Arsene Wenger. In total Mesut Ozil was payed in excess of 100 million pound by AFC for his 6 and a half seasons. At the very least Ozil has cost Arsenal 146 million pound. How much have we sold this mega star for? A big fat zero pound. All this is down to former Manager Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis. And it’s not all over yet and wont be for another 3 seasons. At least 9 other players are on Ozil contracts. Luiz Mustafi Socritis and Torreira who cost 90 million pound to buy and cost a total of 60 million in salaries can all leave on a free in June. But wait there’s more. Pepe Aubameyang Lacazette cost 180 millon to buy and are paid 39 million pound annual salary between them. They will probably all leave on a free. Then there is Willian and Cedric. Throw in the 60 mill loss on Sanchez and the 50m loss on Ramsey plus a slew of others and Arsenal has lost more than a billion pounds these past 7 years. Oh yeah then there is William Salba. Nothing to do with Kroenke. More like chronic incompetent tin pot Generals running our club.
👍
As long as Ozil is gone, we’ll have peace of mind. Period
Gazidis and Wenger are not mentioned in this article and yet they are guys who played a huge part in this mess .Their lack of judgement has cost our Club dear in more ways than one.
Grandad: Gazidis and Wenger and every other employee that did not perform are irrelevant.
It always goes back to the owner because who ever replaced them at Arsenal failed as well.
An astute politician and master manipulator in the wrong profession. Good luck Mesut and bye bye. Right, whose next? Let’s get rid of the deadwood.
Willian pulled the same con. There’s a reason Chelsea didn’t break policy for him. Of course Arsenal bit. I’d put a policy in place that we cannot buy any Chelsea player for the next decade.
RSH, you are forgetting that Chelsea offered Willian a two year deal though and they wouldn’t break that rule.
Just as Wenger had a strict one year deal for players over 30…even Dennis Bergkamp had to abide by that.
Who broke that rule?
Arteta, Edu and Gazidis!!!
True, they did. Willian saw a bigger opportunity with us and shame he was able to convince Arteta and Edu. Huge shame.
It all never adds up. I think the player and his management team must be commended to not have responded to the innuendos and accusations hurled at their client. Why weren’t the names of the other players refusing the salary cut mentioned even to this day? The gaffa came out and said the entire squad would start on a clean slate this season, why were some players not even used in a practice game? Are their qualities that poor? Ozil has now departed and the transfer window will shortly be closed, where is the creative source?
Good article. Also, why did we release Aaron Ramsey? A player at his peak. This was a player who scores at least 10 goals from midfield every season. Now, we have midfielders who cant score a combined 15 goals. Unai Emery was just NAIVE and arrogant.
Arsene wenger had the opportunity to sign Fabregas the second time but failed to take that option. Fabregas went to Chelsea and won the EPL.
Arsene Wenger had the opportunity to sign Gary Cahill, Kante, Vardy, Hazard, Juan Mata, and a whole lot. He messed up.
Why am I saying all these, Kroenke is not the only one to blame. Everyone that had been involved with this club from the managers to the owners and Gadizis all contributed to the mess we are in. We are a mid table team now. Goodbye Ozil. Kroenke is not interested in making us competitive.
Ozil never wanted to come Arsenal , the money was the key the fact is he had more poor games than good and his character was proved when he drove off leaving his mate to deal with two robbers .
And your proof that he never wanted to join our club is where exactly?
Greedy? No.
However three separate managers found no use for him in their team, even though many would agree he is or was one of the most skilled players around. That’s not the mark of a top professional and well-performing player.
I have no issue with him wanting the money Kroenke and Arsenal owed him, but I have serious issues with him not wanting to put in the work required while earning more money than the average person will ever see.
There’s parts of my job I hate, but I still do them and thus I have very little respect for people earning more than a 100 times my wage and not making an effort.
Greedy? No. Lazy? Yes. Useless? Yes.
I would love to see Kroenke leave too though.
Arsenal should stop using salary increase to convince non committed players to stay in the club, any player who hold the club into ransom before signing contract won’t give 100%
100% agree. This is why our pursuit of Aouar should end right now. They guy clearly doesnt want to come to Arsenal and would only come for money. We dont need any more players like this!
Above article opening;
” I have long said that I don’t think that Stan Kroenke has the ambition to take Arsenal back to our previous levels. As long as he’s in charge we will never win the Premiership”
Kroenke back in March 2016 ;
” For me, being an individual owner, I have to have some sort of reality involved.
“If you want to win championships then you would never get involved. I think the best owners in sports are the guys that sort of watch both sides a bit. If you don’t have a good business then you can’t really afford to go out and get the best players unless you just want to rely on other sources of income. ”
Guess what – I posted the EXACT quote above from Kroenke on here months ago to a “mixed” reception.
Look where we are over 6 long years on.
For me Kroenke remains an absent “unambitious” owner, who totally lacks the drive, passion and KNOWLEDGE (not to be confused with “BUSINESS ACUMEN”) to play his part in the history of our club to return us to being once again being “THE ARSENAL” – but then again, he doesn’t really appreciate what that even means !
Great Article on the subject as usual.
Some Ozil’s tenure at Arsenal for 7 years was a waste. I agree.
Some say he made a lot of money with little to show for it. I agree.
Some say he should have never been signed to the second contract. I agree.
What I don’t agree with though is blaming Ozil for everything that went wrong at Arsenal. He was just a sampler who stands out because of his salary.
The Ozil failure was repeated again and again with Xhaka, Auba, Willian, Mkhitaryan, Sanchez, Emery, Pepe, Artera and almost every transaction coming or going.
You can almost bet that the players we purchase won’t work out and the players we sell excel for other teams.
Arsenal become synonymous with inaptitude, mishaps and imperfection.
The measuring stick was beating MU at old Trafford to remain unbeaten. It is now replaced by staying above relegation.
We can agree to disagree on Ozil the player but he is not the problem, he is only the symptom.
Not a fan of Kroenke but just because he is not some sugar daddy or we are owned by Oil money does not mean he is the devil.
Still think football clubs should be sell sustaining.
In recent times he has given the green light to spend quite a lot. I would say after Man C & Chelski (not a level playing field only Man U who are the biggest club in the UK net spend i think has been higher. Unfortunately many of the signings have not been the answer & we have not brought enough money in back in by resale. If you look at later Wenger signings Mustafi, Xhaka & Ozil over £110m outlay. Laca & Auba another 100m + the Big wages. Sanchez & Callum Chambers the best part of 50m when 50m was big money.
Was giving 350k a week to Ozil a good deal for Arsenal NO. Was it a great deal for Mesut? YES.
The Arsenal has always been financed on a self sustaining model, that’s why it was called “the Bank of England Club”.
The history of professional sport, particularly Association Football is littered with clubs, which have spent beyond their means, made the dizzy heights of success and then plummeted down to the lower leagues or closure, when the money ran out. What happens to some of the Premier League/Championship Clubs if their major benefactors suffer business losses or decide they want to invest elsewhere?
Given the impact of Covid19 on matchday revenues, there are presently many clubs in financial jeopardy.
Agree totally with this article. Fenerbache will make Ozil’s wages back with shirt sales alone. They will get more television time too, that means more revenue. I am sure Arsenal will lose revenue too, as they are playing terrible, boring football. I never fell asleep while Wenger was in charge, even if they lost, but now I fall asleep for our games. I will also now be watching Fenerbache play.
Same here bro
As Arsenal are currently making financial losses for various reasons, especially the Covid 19 impact on matchday sales etc and also a bloated wage bill, any savings made, do not end in the owners pockets. They currently only limit the losses, we are making.
Spot on AndersS.The suggestion that we ought to be reinvesting the “saved” wages of Ozil, Saliva etc is nonsense at a time when we are, quite rightly trying to economise in the face of the financial impact of the Pandemic.Hopefully, a measure of normality will return next season and confidence will regenerate the transfer market which is currently restricted to loan deals.As for Kroenke, I very much doubt if he was involved in the decision to freeze out Ozil which was down to the Club Management.That decision is not one I would have supported ,and had he been given the opportunity to play,our Club would not have been subject to ridicule from numerous sources.I sincerely hope this article is the last on Ozil, but I suspect this will not be the case.
Good responses AndersS and Grandad. There is no evidence at all that any money goes into Kroenke’s pocket and I doubt he was involved in Ozil’s pay or freezing him out. Kroenke pays people to run Arsenal and as his stock is rising, why would he bother to get involved? He’s not losing money, Arsenal are.
Oh and Dan, whoever owns Arsenal, we will never win the Premiership, well not unless we move to Scotland that is !
Right on point Dan. Meaningful article. “Sport is a business” as you say, but it is love too, it is joy too, it is heartache too. The worst saying ever….in the whole wide world is………..”Business is Business”. If that is the motto of Stan Kroenke he can ***k off yesterday. Business is just a part of football and Kroenke is learning that at Arsenal. Unlike his American teams Arsenal can be the centre of peoples lives. I think he rues the day he bought Arsenal and a big enough bid will twiddle his greed and scarper gland and make him run away as fast as he can go.
How come some of us have been so brainwashed to believe that the player who, through no fault of his, is not registered to play is rather the guilty party?
I wish to repeat it here that it is very unfair to attribute everything that has gone wrong at Arsenal to Kroenke or Arsene Wenger. Nobody ever blames David Dein for having brought Kroenke to Arsenal in the first place. Why? Double standards or realism? It is illogical to blame Kroenke for contracts that go wrong when he is not involved in the initial negotiations. Similarly it is outrageous to blame him for the team’s poor performance when he has sanctioned about 200 million pounds for purchase of players in the last four years! Most of us agree that Kroenke doesn’t understand football. His duty stops at providing the necessary logistics to enable the team perform.
Now to the issue of Mesut Ozil. Is it Kroenke who told him to be lazy and not perform to the required standard? If Kroenke had refused to sanction Ozil’s wages many on this site would have cursed him! Similarly if Wenger had let Ozil go, Wenger would have been declared an enemy of the people! Much as player power can be disruptive fan power can be equally counter-productive. Since Ozil has left, let us put him behind us and move on. It is unwise to keep dwelling on the past which is not helpful to us.
Lastly, we Gunners should learn to be cohesive and avoid unnecessary divisions which have cost us dearly in the past. If we had allowed Wenger the chance to see out his last contract he might have helped us to identify an appropriate replacement for him but we forced him out with disastrous repercussions for our team! In the last month there were already calls for Arteta to be sacked! Such irrationality does not augur well for building a cohesive unit that is capable of taking Arsenal back to the top. Let us stop building castles in the air and accept the reality that there are too many strong teams in EPL and that it requires patience to get to the top level and we shall get there with time. How long did it take Liverpool to win EPL? How about the issue of Leicester city in 2016? Who would have dreamt that such a thing would happen? Let all true Gunners support our team and success will be attained.
I have a question please, do you think the Ozil saga will arise if not for the interference of covid-19 which leads to cutting wages?
Where I do agree that it is unlikely we will ever win the PL with Kroenke at the helm the rest of the article is written by someone who loves ozil more than Arsenal.
Hopefully this is the last time we get an article telling us that ozil is the best thing since sliced bread and that he is not greedy.
The trouble with the article is it is opinion and not fact. Most of what has been written i disagree with strongly. I dont think Arsenal can be accused of being greedy, i dont think Kronk can be accused a being greedy, by the way the club is run. The club is run the way it is and our 150 mil of petty cash has all been used up on players and gone. We are down to the floorboards as far as money is concerned because of bad buys and Ozil is one of them. Stan doesn’t buy players, others are paid to do it for him. Kronk is not a great owner of our football club but for completely different reasons to what the article is blaming him for. I hate him owning our club but at least slag him off for what he has done badly for this club and not opinion, that is somehow relateted to your incredible Ozil love in.
Oh poor Reggie…😁
All of my articles are my opinions
mesut ozil has left our club (by all accounts), so, lets just meave it at that . mesut has moved on, as we should also do.i dont give a flying fig who was wrong or who was right in this debacle, does not matter anymore. what i would like to do is move on now and wish mesut the very best in his professional and private life.i sincerely hopes that he will find happiness ,he clearly was not happy with the arsenal for some time. so good luck to him, and lets not turn this into another wengeresqe type of scenario.there should be no longer ozil lovers or haters, and i use haters reluctantly as i do not like that word.arsenal fc are still here , and so are we , lets build that bridge and get over it.
@dan
Very well written article. Sad day to see Ozil go.
I watched some old Arsenal videos from the days of
Wengerball and I have to say at the end I was really
saddened by the fact this once great football club is
wilting away. I am not sure what changes to put us back to European elite but Ozil leaving is not a step in the right direction. Last great midfielder we had.
Also btw I would strongly advise you answering comments from “Got an idea” unless you are a bit of a masochist.
Another classic Dan Smith fluff piece…no due diligence, no legwork, no proper context, just another love letter to Ozil by simply attacking the lowest hanging fruit in the room…I’m certainly no Kroenke apologist, as I’ve gone to great lengths to attack the obvious shortcomings of Kroenke as an owner, but the Ozil issue was just another flaming bag of shit that Wenger left on our doorstep before exiting the building…if it wasn’t for his horrible mishandling of the Sanchez situation, largely because of Alexis’s competing presence in the locker room and the fact that his style of play wasn’t conducive to the tiki-taka tactics Wenger desperately wanted to employ, the Ozil deal would have never gone done as it did…Kroenke was an absentee landlord, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the day-to-day operations of the club and as such you must point the finger of blame at the one individual who had their fingerprints on everything football-related, Arsene Wenger
Let’s be honest I, like you wanted Wenger gone but his teams vs what we have today is like night and day. And Ozil was part of that. No self respecting footballer would say “pay me less”
hence Auba who pulled the same shit .
Ozil was/is one of the best midfielders of his generation and having him at Arsenal it only made the team better. It is over and let’s move on but from a sheer footbaling point of view what we are watching now is sub par.
Good article Dan. I stated in an earlier response that a core philosophy in business and politics is: If you cannot change a reality; change the perception about it. They did a great job on Ozil. I cannot blame the fans either. The campaign was just the SHIRT (minus the R). I even used it in my research philosophy class, pointing out to students how to effect a campaign. I rate it that much. So the fans here who got duped need not feel embarrassed.
My quarrel is how much it cost us (those of us who are fans all our lives). This hurt me bad watching the Team struggle; watching them play crab ball. This was a term from my high school coach. I played as a #10 and there were 2 others on my school team. We were all injured or sick with flu for a crucial game. So Coach said we would play crab ball. Now crabs go sideways. He meant we would play from flank to flank and make crosses. Unfortunately, we had only one player over 6 ft. We lost 3 nil. Seems like what MA was doing when he discovered that Willian was already retired. He was supposed to be the cheap replacement of Ozil. And did we suffer? Smith-Rowe is now here. Thank God. But we have lost a lot. How fans blame Ozil in all of this I cannot fathom. But again, the scam was good. May good scams live on!
At a macro scale, we really have no idea how complicated the Ozil situation is. Remember Arsenal is a club with shareholders, huge fanbase world wide and Ozil is perhaps the cover of Arsenal since he joined the club.
For him to underperform on a 350k salary, to be involved with politics when the clubs rejects it is a huge problem whether you are behind him or not.
In Kroenke’s view, Arsenal is an asset underperforming financially and objectively.
“Instead of just writing off the money though, the American has had a paddy and clearly”
Not at all offensive for Irish people to read:
Throwing a paddy
A dated and offensive expression generally used by English people to describe someone having an over the top strop.
Offensively refers to Irish people as “paddys” and their “over the top sulking” when it came to the English stealing Irish land, pillaging and their refusal to grant the Irish their independence for a long time.
It implies unreasonableness, obstinacy and an inability to control the temper (which go nicely with drunkeness and violence of course).
Outdated expression thats up there with the likes of “working like a black”
What are you throwing a paddy for?
I don’t know if you are Irish Stephen, but I don’t understand why you are “over the top sulking” and throwing a paddy over a very inocuous saying.
My name is Patrick McLaughlin and this is my website, and so is my son’s name who writes on here, so I think I can decide if I am offended by this “outdated expression” which in common use everywhere and actually means the same as “throwing your toys out of the pram”
Uh oh… Is that offensive to babys?