Most of the comments on the JustArsenal Twitter account about Mesut Ozil’s recent statement about the Arsene Wenger contract situation has been either positive about Ozil’s stance i.e. “Great to see our star player respecting our great manager”, or totally negative i.e. “Wenger has to go and he can take Ozil with him!” I’m going to try and look at it from a balanced point of view….
There have been many differing translations from his German interview on Kicker, so I am going to use the one from the BBC, which I guess should be trustworthy. “I want to be clear on what Wenger is doing,” said Ozil.
“I feel very, very happy at Arsenal and have shown the club that I am prepared to extend my contract,”
“The fans want me to stay. Now it’s just down to the club.”
“The club knows that I am, above all, here because of Arsene Wenger – who signed me and whose trust I have,” added Ozil.
“The club also knows that I just want to be clear on what the manager will do.”
Okay so here are the benefits as far as I am concerned. We now that that if Wenger signed a new extension, then Ozil will follow suit, and that can only be good for the club.
BUT if everything goes wrong towards the season and Wenger finds himself getting abused by the fans again, then he may decide that he has had enough of being unappreciated, and may decide NOT take up the club’s offer of a new extension. This could also be good for the club, because if Ozil (and maybe Alexis and others who will have one year left on their contracts) decide they want to leave as well, then we can get fortunes by selling them on in the summer.
This would then mean that the new manager will have a fantastic transfer fund to rebuild the team with his own players, and can stamp his own authority on the team.
Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
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