Arsenal Transfer Rumors: Isco For Mesut Ozil Swap Sweetening

Arsenal’s regular first team stalwarts are looking shaky in recent outings, making the prospectus of an Isco for Mesut Ozil swap seem even sweeter.

Losing to Chelsea is always going to suck, but it sucks even worse when the guys that Arsenal leans on don’t manage to show much of a fight. Even Alexis looked fluster, but I attribute that to his having to play striker again.

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It was Mesut Ozil, however, that looked like he couldn’t care less. He looked like the same Mesut Ozil that disappeared in the week when we lost to Everton and Manchester City. That mopey, lacking anything physical Ozil that can make you cringe.

I get what Ozil said way back in that week when we lost two straight. He pointed out that if he goes ten great games and one bad one, he gets criticized and that’s unfortunately true. But when you are a world class star like he is, criticism is going to come on any subpar performance.

And now, Ozil has had a handful of really poor performances this year, not just one in ten. That ratio is skewing in the wrong direction.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Arsenal don’t need him. But I will entertain the prospect of what could happen if we were to cash in on him now and find someone else.

Naturally there is no one out there that does what Ozil does, but I don’t think we should worry so much about finding someone who does exactly what he does and instead focus on someone who can do the things Ozil doesn’t do.

For instance, Isco.

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I feel like the 4-4-2 formation switch is being held back by Ozil, who needs that No. 10 role to be happy. But if he were to depart, we could stick two class forwards up front, and we have options, and put Isco and Xhaka (assuming he stops making stupid tackles) in the middle two spots.

That, in my humble opinion, is stronger than working a triangle that lacks the defensive gumption to merit having two defensive midfielders and lacks the offensive consistency to merit having a No. 10 that doesn’t defend.

It’s all about maximizing your strengths and Arsenal has a strength up front right now. When Giroud and Welbeck were both in there against Chelsea, the Gunners looked the best they had all day. They had size and presence in an overwhelmed box.

And they sacrificed in the midfield to get there and it’s not like that got any worse.

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The emphasis on the midfield is pointless if it doesn’t help us. So change things up. Wenger doesn’t like straight defensive midfielders anyway.

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