Arsenal: Wenger Sending Mesut Ozil To Firing Squad By Benching Alexis

Arsenal has been struggling massively, and Mesut Ozil has been a big part of it. Now that Alexis Sanchez has been dropped, though, Ozil is headed to the firing squad.

Arsenal’s collapse has had some very obvious contributing factors. Mesut Ozil has been a bit lacking in the inspiration department, for one. Alexis Sanchez has been falling out with team mates in training and getting benched for it. Arsene Wenger can’t seem to figure out who his weakest links are.

All he’d have to do is check Twitter.

Moving forward, it’s hard to see where things would improve. Maybe the pressure being lifted, as they’ve hit rock bottom, can help.

One thing that will not help is the aftermath of Alexis being benched. Seeing the Chilean smirking on the bench as Arsenal got picked apart in the first half against Liverpool was excruciating. Mainly because, honestly, I had trouble blaming him. And we didn’t know the details at the time and now there is some backlash that he is “selfish” but still, it’s a bad situation.

I can’t help but think this backlash is going to hit Ozil too. Throughout his struggles, a lot of people, myself included, have been calling for him to hit the bench. Not permanently or anything, but just until he can sort himself out and figure out how to get inspired.

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However, Wenger made it clear that Ozil was untouchable. He kept marching him out there through hell or high water an watching the same old thing. It just felt like Ozil was too much of a superstar to face a benching. Which makes me wonder where the power on the team actually lies.

But I digress. Wenger has now shown that he has the capacity to bench his best player for disciplinary reasons. Which means that he should therefore be capable of benching a similar, superstar player for under-performing, right?

Meaning that, assuming Ozil continues to struggle, which, let’s hope he doesn’t, then the outcry is going to be even worse to see the German maestro given the same treatment.

And, if I know Wenger, he won’t cave. He will keep sending Ozil out there and the atmosphere is only going to get worse and worse. There are already questions pertaining to Ozil’s ability to hold up to pressure, but with the fans turning on him more, it would figure to be a downward spiral.

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This may be just another step towards a need for cleaning house. This summer should be mighty interesting.

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