It is still not certain that Ozil will play, but going by Unai Emery’s statement it would seem that he now has a chance to be picked at least, after being excluded completely for over a month. As usual, the media were quick to ask if Ozil would be back in to the Arsenal squad, and the boss replied on Arsenal.com: “Yes, tomorrow. He’s in the group so he has a chance to play.
“We have had this morning a very good conversation, Mesut and Me, and I said to him I haven’t changed my idea about him. He knows what I want from him because it’s the same as last season in the first day of pre-season training when we had a conversation. It’s the same as one month ago and in that way, some circumstances weren’t helping us in every moment to be consistent or available to play.
“But I will say I think the last weeks he has progressively been training well and adding his spirit to help us. For example, our conversation this morning was because I wanted to listen to him about how he’s thinking now to help us and be with us tomorrow. Then if we are in the same spirit and the same idea, to play. It was a very good conversation and tomorrow he’s in the group.
“We need his quality, his skill and his consistency. We need his positive mentality and then he will help us on the pitch. That’s the next step. I think he’s done the steps before, and now I want the steps like in pre-season and one month ago to help us on the pitch.”
So now it is up to Ozil to prove he has the “positive mentality”, which has obviously been lacking so far this season and which I’m sure can’t have been helped by the car-jacking incident. I think it would be great for the morale and confidence of the team if this rift was over completely, but I guess we will have to wait and see….
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