Arsenal: Welling Needs To Can It About Mesut Ozil

Arsenal has enough to deal with without external voices telling their superstars to leave. As such, Michael Welling needs to shush up about Mesut Ozil.

There is a lot going on in the Arsenal world. Arsene Wenger is doing his best Helen Keller impersonation (is that insensitive?), there are absences galore in the opening day lineup, Alexis’ ankle looks like Grimace from McDonalds and we may be relying on Theo Walcott to score goals early in the season.

Enough is enough. The last thing Arsenal needs is for old mentors to be harping in our player’s ears, telling them to go see the world and leave London behind. But that is precisely what Michael Welling, Rot-Weiss Essen’s chairman, is doing.

"“He needs to see the art, to experience the French lifestyle and bring his World Cup experience to PSG. Mesut has to be in Paris for at least a year. Of course he’ll have to go on to Italy, AC Milan would be great. I’m pretty sure Bayern Munich would be a very good target for Mesut after Serie A. He’s said he wants to play in Istanbul and then, as you know, America is the place to develop your brand, and Mesut is a brand. After that, well China is paying a lot for players, isn’t it?”"

Given that Ozil will be 28 this year, if he were to follow through on his old club chairman’s advice, he should be leaving like, two year ago.

PSG, then AC Milan, then Bayern Munich, then MLS, then China? If he spends one year at each, he’s 32 years old. Granted, he can probably save those last two stops until he’s 35, so maybe two years at each and then on to MLS to be the next Andrea Pirlo?

Why am I even talking about this? Mesut Ozil does not want to leave Arsenal. That is clear. If Arsenal give him a reason to leave, like if they continue to underwhelm and not win, then they will inevitably push him out of the door. But if they start winning and assuming the dominance that Wenger has been constructing, then Ozil has no reason to leave.

Think of what Ozil has become since coming to Arsenal. It’s truly remarkable. When he was at Real Madrid, he was a global superstar. Everyone knew his name. He knew who he was and there was no changing.

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Coming to Arsenal completely jolted his reality as it took him a whole 18 months to acclimate but, in the process, he became even better. He is now the best creative midfielder in Europe. No question.

Not only that, but he is consciously changing himself for Arsenal. He noted not long ago that he was changing his body language so as to look better on the pitch. Ozil was often criticized for looking disconnected , but instead of lashing out in stubbornness, he changed his own super star self just so the fans would believe that he was happy at Arsenal.

Who does that? Not many people, I’ll tell you that. Not many at all.

Ozil has a cult following in North London. He has his own Twitter hashtag, (#YaGunnersYa) and he does everything he can to reassure everyone that he is happy.

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So back off, Welling. Your boy is happy here in North London and so long as Wenger can deliver on some major silverware, he has no reason to take this proposed world tour.

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