Arsenal: Dele Alli Can’t Even Sit At Same Table As Mesut Ozil Yet

Arsenal’s undeniably world class Mesut Ozil is being compared to Dele Alli, who shouldn’t even be in the same sentence, let alone a peer.

First of all, that title is a Mean Girls reference. Second of all, does anyone actually think that Dele Alli is better than Mesut Ozil? I’m open to your arguments, but before you go about planning your rebuttal, let’s really dig into more numbers than the proprietors of this claim do and prove why Arsenal has it better off.

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There are two things that this report did horribly wrong. First – they focused mostly on goals. And that’s it. Secondly – they took Ozil’s averages going back to when he first came into the league. That is tragically unfair because Ozil took awhile getting acclimated. If you want to argue who is better here and now, you should be looking at how the two have been doing in their recent past.

There is no taking away from Alli how special he is. 20 years old and already this consistent. That’s pretty stellar. But he’s still young and he is going to hit his road blocks. Overcoming that will test his resolve and make him into the final product that he is going to become.

Any way, the numbers, which I shouldn’t even have to point to. Ozil has had a career of being world class. Alli has two years of solid numbers. Big difference. But let’s do it anyway.

Mesut Ozil last year – eight goals and 19 assists in 3700 minutes of play. Dele Alli -10 goals and 11 assists in 3000 minutes. That’s a goal contribution every 137 minutes for Ozil and every 143 minutes for Alli. Respectable, young Dele, but it goes to Ozil.

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This year, nine goals and seven assists in 2000 minutes for Ozil. 12 goals and two assists in 2100 minutes for Alli. That’s a goal contribution every 125 minutes for Ozil and every 150 for Alli.

Again, props to Alli, he really hung in there. But Ozil wins again. And do you want to even talk about chances created? Alli never gets much above 1.5 while Ozil has touched as high as 4.2. A bad year for Ozil in chance creation is better than Alli’s best.

I’m not here to bash Alli, the dude is very talented. But let’s get real. This is Mesut Ozil we are talking about. Both of these players are works in progress, as Ozil is learning to score more goals and Alli is learning consistency. But in terms of longevity, Ozil has been a world beater for years.

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As always, thanks to the Metro for stirring the pot. But you did nothing other than remind us that even when we are highly critical of Ozil, he’s still better than what the Spurs have.