What has happened to Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil?

Last season Mesut Ozil was the star of the Arsenal show. He was creating hundreds of chances in every game, and would surely have broken Thierry Henry’s assist record if our strikers (especially Olivier Giroud) had have not been so profligate in front of goal in the second half of the season. He even broke the record for the amount of chances created in one game, albeit in a game we drew 0-0! (Southampton).

Okay Ozil has scored two goals this season in his eight games played, while the team has alreached reached 16 League goals, but amazingly the German hasn’t created one assist! And if you add the last 8 matches from last season, we will find the drought actually started last season and he has only created one single assist in his last 16 appearances for the Gunners.

Already Santi Cazorla (with 2)and Alex Iwobi (with 3) are both ahead of Ozil’s usual figures. But is this simply because Ozil is playing badly or is there another reason?

Ozil is playing in the same position as last season, and against Burnley for example he made 80 passes. 72 of them reached their target but not one of them ended up as a shot, either on or off target!

These are worrying stats for Arsenal fans, as it is unlikely that Wenger is going to take the risk of dropping Ozil from the starting line-up. I guess it doesn’t matter at the moment as we are scoring goals and winning anyway, but just think how many we would have scored if the midfielder had been as clinical as at the beginning of last season….

Admin

21 Comments

  1. He looks lost. Don’t know what has happened but he doesn’t look interested. With our attack already looking thin and our performance mediocre , ozil needs to up his game drastically.

    He is 27 /28 and should be performing week in week out but he has not. Maybe he is sick and tired if feeding the ball to average players like giroud, surely deserves better.

  2. Let’s not lie to ourselves. Ozil is inconsistent. Has been as long as I can remember. He’s a patchy player we just need to hope there’s a patch of the purple variety coming soon

    1. Ozil wasn’t patchy last season. He was awesome the whole season
      He led the league in assists and could have broken Henry’s record but for poor finishing by our strikers. We wouldn’t have finished 2nd without him.

    2. I agree that without Ozils form we would not have come second. Even then on the first day of the season vs west ham he was heavily criticised (i still remember all those Reece oxford memes) and at the end of the season he wasnt as good either (still performing well, but not consistently at his peak) All I am saying is he has far more off days than other WC players

  3. one thing is for sure. he is not concentrating because he wants to leave the club. no excuses and that’s that. if he wants to leave on my part I would let him go. its better for everyone – goner for ever

  4. There’s nothing drastically wrong with Ozil, he is probably pacing himself for a long hard season by keeping his game extra simple, just like his passing of late.
    That’s all it is unless you want some conspiracy theory added to it to spice things up? Lol.?
    And heres one for the die hards:
    How about Giroud and Ozil have got some Beef between them since the end of last season? ?During the summer before the Euro’s kicked off, Ozil was in the spotlight for liking a post on Instagram which mocked Giroud for his untold missed chances which cost Ozil the chance to smash Henry’s assists record and We all know that Giroud has a very sensitive Ego, especially after the way he reacted to Henry’s comments of “Arsenal won’t win the league all the while that Giroud is playing up front” And in the end Henry had to come out and rephrase his statement because Giroud wouldn’t let it go. We also had Giroud trying to convince Sissoko to join Arsenal instead of the spuds, what was that about? ? Was he trying to find competition for Ozil? Lol ?
    So there you go ‘Conspiracy theory’ fan’s, there’s a problem between Giroud and Ozil lol ? Which may explain why both player’s are missing …. One physically and the other mentally. ?

  5. Maybe Ozil is missing Giroud. Last season he created all that assists for Giroud. Ollie was in the box always lurking. This season sanchez wanders off and there is no one in the box. So many times I see Ozil hanging onto the ball for a movement in the box, nothing in the box so he has to pass sideways again and again. Against Chelshit he was awesome!

  6. Ozil’s main strength is his ability to see chances quickly, but he is weak in physical duel, passing accuracy, ball control, dribbling and defending. I think Ozil will perform better for teams that play with high tempo, high intensity and quick direct attacks, like Real Madrid and Leicester City. In Arsenal, he has to increase his work rate and lower his tempo, which was not the style he used in Real Madrid.

    If he is in Bayern Muenchen, I think he will perform again, because Bayern has more direct style. If he is in Barcelona or (Guardiola’s) Manchester City, I think he will face the same problem. I think Arsenal needs an attacking midfielder that has more ball control and high work rate, not just vision and flair. Someone like Alexis Sanchez, Hleb or Isco.

    1. Got-an-idea. Ball control? What is ball control to you, Ozil has one of the deftest touches your likely to see, his one touch is impeccable, he knows where the ball is at all times, meaning it’s under control. And passing accuracy, wtf, to be the games top assister I’m pretty sure you need some accuracy. Splitting defences is the most difficult pass you can make, it’s not gonna be like a CM who has six to 8 men to aim for. Ridiculous stuff you’re talking.

  7. ozil the only reason we think he his world class because he once played for Real Madrid. i have been saying this for along time arsenal would be better surve with a defrent stile of play maker one who can shoot head the ball take on defender dribble into space.we all see it over on over again you don’t need one killers pass to win game alot of team don’t have ozil on create lots of chance against us. we as human been all we do his repeat what we read best number ten in the world my ass.not even the top ten in the Premier League

  8. Maybe that has something to do with Alexis moving central? It also means Ozil has less space to play… Unsurprisingly, Alexis’ own assist stats have gone up the roof!

    1. Alexis does be in the box more than Giroud was. Ozil has three fast players making runs, there’s no excuses. I heard another person say now that Santi has more freedom it’s because of him wanting to get forward, and before that I heard someone say it was Ramsey whenever Ozil was in a patchy spell. The truth is Ozil is drifting all over the place as he always done, but he’s been barely even attempting killer balls never mind making them. He needs to get closer to Alexis, or whoever is in and around the box, he needs to play as a second striker, the way most do when behind the front man. Ozil is just out of form, we’ve always had numbers pouring forward, this is nothing new to Ozil, he’s used to congestion and is our go to man when in tight games, so I highly doubt this theory of yours.

  9. Form is temporary, class is permanent. Even when he doesn’t assist, he’s still somehow involved. Pretty much everything runs thru him one way or another. Ozil will come good, so stop worrying and spreading panic.

  10. While he’s clearly not playing at top form, he’s also not doing nearly as terribly as that 1 assist in 16 matches suggest, I think. We also haven’t been clinical in finishing his passes/would-be assists. He is making an average of 2.2 key passes so far this season in the league. For comparison- Iwobi 1.4, Cazorla 1.4, (despite their greater number of assists) David Silva 2.8, De Bruyne is on 3.3, Mata 0.8, Pogba 1.8, Coutinho 2.3, Firmino 3.3, Eriksen 2.3, Alli 1.9, Oscar 2.2, Hazard 1.7. I guess he should ideally be reaching the heights of Firmino/De Brunye as he is up there with the very best.

  11. Ozil has been blowing hot and cold so far he has two good games followed by two average games. At Chelsea he was magnificent wearas Paris and hull were poor games for him

  12. we should leave ozil alone,i know that he hasn’t been at his best yet but i,d rather have him struggle now while the rest of the team is firing on all cylinders,it,s a long season and i truly believe that he will come good when we are struggling&depending on him he ,ll start racking up the numbers of assist,his slow start to the season might be because after recovering from the euros it is taking him a bit longer to get going again compared to other players but not to worry because”FORM IS TEMPORARY BUT CLASS IS PERMANENT”.

  13. It is hard to say what exactly is responsible for the Ozil slump but guess what? We are stronger this season because we now have different play makers and players capable of winning us games. Walcot, Sanchez, Iwobi, Koscielny, Perez and Xhaka are turning up and scoring goals plus assists. Maybe Ozil is not used to not having the entire game relying on him. We used to rely on him heavily last season but not so anymore. This is good. But I hope he turns up because when he does, we will be even better. In the mean time, I read somewhere that we want to bring back fabregas in january for a fee of around 20 mil. What do you guys think? If it is true, I think we should go for it. Cesc is a gunner through and through and it helps to know that if Ozil is below form, we have a ready replacement who can be just as devastating. If Fabregas comes in, we can let carzola go if we cannot work out a renewal of his contract.

Comments are closed

Top Blog Sponsors