No matter what Mesut Ozil does, he always seems to cause endless arguments between fans and pundits alike, and despite being left completely out of the squad for Arsenal’s game against Man City, he has upset everyone once again.
Mikel Arteta said that Ozil was ignored purely for tactical reasons on the day, but in the pre-Brighton press conference, the boss seemed to indicate that Ozil wasn’t fit enough to give his best. Ozil’s reaction was to send out a Tweet of himself kissing the Arsenal badge and the words “No matter what.”
This has incensed the TalkSport pundit Adrian Durham, who has decided that Ozil has done this simply to play mind games with Arteta for leaving him out, and it seems to indicate that he will not be leaving the club before the end of his contract. “He sent a tweet out [on Thursday] trying to tell the fans how much he loves Arsenal. It was him holding the badge while playing for the Gunners,” Durham said on air.
“That tweet is designed to undermine the manager who said he left him out for tactical reasons.
“Now whether you agree with Arteta or not [regarding that decision], Mesut Ozil is disrupting Mikel Arteta there.
“He’s making life difficult for him, he’s done it with other managers in the past, he’s now doing it with Arteta, and it just can’t go on.”
“They’re paying £350,000-a-week to a player who isn’t even worth having on the bench in a massive game, and Arsenal are considering giving a similar deal to [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang who had zero impact on the game.
“We talked about strategy with Arsenal recently. The strategy is all wrong and needed to be readdressed and refocused.
“Mesut Ozil might have made a difference, but we haven’t seen him do that often enough since he arrived in 2013. He’s been there a long, long time.”
So, although admittedly the tweet seems to be purposely cryptic, it is a fact that Ozil used this tactic a lot when he was being left out by Unai Emery, which created divisions among the staff and the fans. I wonder if Ozil will have the same success with taking on Mikel Arteta, who seems to have more respect from the players….