Arsenal: Mesut Ozil’s Scapegoat Theory Has Missing Pieces

Arsenal’s maestro Mesut Ozil has lashed out at being “singled out” by supporters, but his theory has some major plot holes that need to be addressed.

Arsenal is dying on a vine lately and it doesn’t look like any individual is capable of saving the sinking ship. If Alexis Sanchez can’t do it, who can? Well, certainly not Mesut Ozil. The German maestro has gone right along with the sinking, unable to pick himself or his team mates up. Even he has admitted that his performances have dipped.

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Yet he thinks he is being “singled out” for Arsenal’s poor form. And that this is all a matter of the fans needing someone to blame.

That’s not entirely accurate. While the scapegoat theory has worked in the past with Olivier Giroud, it’s different with Mesut Ozil. But that’s not to say that he is wholly to blame.

The big hole in Ozil’s logic is that he is overlooking the position that he is in to make a difference. It’s not like he is a rotation player that doesn’t see the pitch all that often. Ozil is one of the two superstars on this club who was brought into be a difference maker. He was brought in to be a guy that can turn things around in situations just like this and he has not been able to do that. Not in the least.

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Some of that falls on Ozil, but not all of it. As the No. 10, a role that he has made his own, mainly because of last season, just about everything has to go through him in the attack. He is the commander and the overseer. That’s because he is deserving of such responsibility, as he has previously shown us.

When you are the most expensive player in club history, a lot is expected of you. So when you go down with a sinking ship and don’t become a superhuman, lifting the ship back up, you get blamed. That’s just how things work.

Now, as I mentioned, that isn’t all on Ozil, because Arsene Wenger fell into the same mindset that the fans have in singling him out. Wenger had no alternative. He expected huge things out of Ozil and rather than adjusting on the fly when things didn’t work out, he just left him in there, hoping that he would do something.

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Ozil does deserve a huge chunk of responsibility for not living up to the huge expectations that he walked into, but at the same time, the club’s inability to adjust is at fault too.