Arsenal Must Eliminate Mesut Ozil And Alexis Sanchez Speculation
Arsenal’s star players have reportedly become disenchanted with their team’s progress in the Champions League. Arsenal’s upcoming seasons are in peril.
According to reports from Marca that have spread like wildfire in the past 24 hours, Mesut Ozil has allegedly refused a new two-year contract and has made it very clear to the Arsenal back room that he is unsure about his future.
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When Ozil joined from Real Madrid in the summer of 2013/14, the Arsenal backroom apparently promised him that his new team would make new-found progress in the Champions League. Granted, the first knockout round of the 2015/16 edition of the Champions League has not been played yet. However, a fixture against Barcelona is not going to be easy.
As far as trophies go, the Gunners have won two of them with Ozil in the side and they look like pushing for a third in 2015/16. Whether or not a three-peat of the F.A. Cup is on the cards, what is really being referred to is Arsenal’s dramatic 2-1 win against Leicester City. That win over the Foxes puts the Gunners in contention for the Premier League title again. Though it doesn’t guarantee anything.
Down the road in this 2015/16 season, it will become much clearer as to how close Arsenal are to English dominance as well as how far they still need to go if they want to win a European trophy. Should the Gunners get knocked out of the Champions League, they will have less congestion between fixtures and it could increase their chances of making a run in both the F.A. Cup and the Premier League.
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However, if past events dictate the patterns of the future and the February-March period brings about a total loss of momentum, questions will be asked.
Mesut Ozil will have been at the club for three seasons at the end of this season, and he may have not seen his team make any progress domestically or continentally, something he likely did not expect upon arrival. Not only that, but his optimism probably increased greatly with the arrival of Alexis Sanchez, another player used to winning trophies with his team who came to Arsenal in order to push them forward.
Mesut Ozil and Alexis have been the men in the past two seasons for the Gunners, and if their teammates fail to come up with the goods, and the boys from north London end up trophy-less – they might want out.
It was clear in 2014/15 that Alexis was indispensable to his team when he was on form, but Mesut Ozil has proven to be this team’s lynchpin even more than his Chilean teammate. The German has created sixty-nine more opportunities than the next highest player total in the Arsenal team, and his total of 105 is the highest among European players.
To conclude, this season could be a make or break one for the Gunners and if they go down the “break” path, their star players could possibly depart the club and leave them in need of new firepower. Granted, it is just a rumor and Marca have been known to declare interest in foreign players for Barcelona and Real Madrid as a proxy in the past. However, it brings up an interesting problem that is Mesut Ozil’s – and possibly Alexis’ as well – willingness to keep fighting rather than find success at another club.