Arsenal vs Manchester City: Mesut Ozil can make it all go away

Arsenal’s German maestro Mesut Ozil has had a highly controversial season, but the old trope of third times a charm is running right into Manchester City.

Arsenal signed Mesut Ozil to be a game changer. He had his own era, essentially and he was in control of where that era went. What we came to find out is that Ozil is, at times, a passenger. A luxury passenger, who can change the enjoyment of the ride, but can he actually drive? That’s the question we haven’t answered.

Ozil has been up and down. Almost split right down the middle, actually, which makes it even harder to ascertain what exactly he means to the club. This year especially has been a massive battle with finding his best self.

It started awfully, despite the chance creation numbers. That was the one thing everyone pointed to, but the overlying theme was that he wasn’t making big enough impacts on matches.

That is, until lately. Mesut Ozil has really come into his own lately, looking much less like a passenger and much more like a driver. But we have to be wary, or the letdown could be massive.

I subscribe to the belief that if you do something once, it’s a fluke, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend. That’s for my own safety, otherwise I’d be banking on Ozil and Theo Walcott every odd stellar performance that they have.

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Then came Everton. Mesut Ozil sliced and diced, slipped and slid, bobbed and weaved all over Everton. He created eight chances, nabbed a goal and an assist and looked just plain filthy. In a good way. The best way.

While the hard stats weren’t there against Swansea City (the assist was a bit liberal), the same influence was seen. He created five chances and at no point was I moaning and groaning about his lack of usefulness.

That makes it two times in a row now that we have seen Ozil at his absolute best, and that has me, and a lot of others, pretty damn enthusiastic. But it’s only two times, and applying that to my rule of thumb, we need one more to make it an actual thing. To make it true form.

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That’s where Manchester City comes into this. Ozil’s pursuit of true form runs smack dab into the best team in England. But that puts Ozil in a pretty awesome situation where he can make the criticism of him literally disappear. All he has to do is come out, against City, and keep doing what he’s been doing.

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