There is a saying about making the same mistakes over and over again, but I can’t remember exactly how it goes. And we have all laid that sort of accusation at the door of Arsene Wenger at times, whether it be in the transfer market, tactics or any other part of his management skills.
But we are all armchair managers whose only success has come on a computer game console, so I am at least willing to admit that Wenger might, just might, know what he is doing more than I do. So, why is the Frenchman currently going against all conventional thinking and playing Mesut Ozil in the same wide role where he struggled for Germany and where he does not want to play?
Is it punishment, tactical or merely that Wenger feels that Santi Cazorla or Jack Wilshere is better in the number 10 role? It might be a little bit of all three, but to go back to what people say about repeating your mistakes, the opposite is also true. So if you do something and it works, surely you would do it again.
And when Aaron Ramsey and Wilshere were struggling for form in recent years, both had spells out on the flanks. It may not have gone well in every game, but the boss seems to see it as a part of the process of getting them firing again. So let’s put some trust in the Prof once more and hope that playing Ozil out of position will end up like Ramsey and Wilshere and not Andrey Arshavin…