Former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour has insisted that the Mesut Ozil situation regarding wage negotiations highlights the lack of leadership at the club.
It emerged last week that players have agreed a deal to take a 12.5% pay cut from their wages following the suspension of the Premier League, as well as lockdown denying the club a number of income canals.
Mesut Ozil was then named as one of three players who had so far refused to agree to such cuts, with the others so far not outed, but Parlour claims it is the club that the situation is the fault of Arsenal, and not the player.
“He’s on 350k-a-week but I look it as Arsenal’s mistake to give him the money,” Parlour told talkSPORT. “You’re never going to turn it down, that shouldn’t come into it really.
“I do believe if there are three or four players then they should all be named. Why’s it only Mesut Ozil who has been named? You should know every single player.”
Parlour moved to claim that the situation only moves to highlight the lack of leadership at the club at present, and that this would have been dealt with very differently in his era.
“It shows the leadership issues again,” Parlour added. “In my era Tony Adams was captain, he would’ve gone around every single player and we would have all agreed together what we were going to do.
“We either all do it or we don’t. It shows the lack of leadership. Even with Patrick Vieira it would have been the same. There wouldn’t be meetings with managers or anyone like that, it would have been down to the players.
“Patrick would have been on the phone or a zoom meeting and said this is the plan, this is what the club want to do what is the feedback? It’s negative news which they don’t need right now.”
Ozil has most definitely been unfairly singled out for his stance, despite him negotiating with the club on an agreement which would work out best for everyone, including a possible deferral of wages which would allow the club to pay his wages when they emerge from the current financial issues.
Why was Ozil singled out? Why have the other players not been named? Does the club need to take more flack for agreeing to pay him £350,000 a week in the first place?
Patrick
good
Jon
I’m only new to this site but l am feeling uneasy at how many unnecessary articles there are about Ozil. There are only so many times that stories about him can be regurgitated or that his name can appear when the story is only very loosely about him.