Arsenal coach should have ripped into Ozil critic by Sam P
I think that Arsene Wenger could have gone a lot further than he did in standing up for the Arsenal and Germany international midfielder Mesut Ozil today. The manager was of course well within his rights to defend his player from what Paul Scholes had suggested and the things the Frenchman pointed out seemed perfectly fair to me.
Wenger could have gone further, however, and said more about why Scholes was making the criticism as well as pointing out that it was unfair, as reported by The Mirror. Scholes had claimed in his article in The Independent that Ozil had taken an easy option by coming to the Emirates and pointed to the fact that a lot of our best players in the last 10 years have gone the other way.
The former Man Unite man said, “Those players have realised that if they want to win championships then they have to move elsewhere. It’s why I think Mesut Özil took the easy option joining Arsenal. Since he has been there you cannot doubt his quality but at times he looks like he is going through the motions, however much ground he covers. He needs a leader around him to get him going. At Real Madrid he had a chance of winning league titles. At Arsenal that is not on the cards.”
Wenger replied, “It is not fair. A player like Paul Scholes would have loved to play with Mesut Ozil.
“Having said that, I believe about Ozil it’s a wrong statement [from Scholes]. He works very hard and he’s a great player.
“He has something to prove and he knows that. We are all in a job where in every single game we have to prove a point.
“I believe he has the quality, he puts a lot of effort in to help the team and he works much harder than his style shows.
“You can be cheated a little bit by his style of play, because he is fluent, easy, subtle and he does not look like he puts the effort in, but he does.
“I knew he had a good physical potential, but did not know how good he was physically. He has a huge physical potential.”
All good points and the stats on Ozil’s work rate as well as his rate of providing assists, creating chances and even scoring goals backs Wenger up. What the Arsenal boss could have said, though, is how hypocritical Scholes’ attack was.
Maybe he could have pointed out that Scholes said Ozil took the easy option out but also that it is now harder for him to win things than at Real Madrid. So why not stay where he was? Is it not true, Scholesy, that you just like having a go at our club and players? Yeah thought so!