Arsenal: Mid-Season player rankings

19. Mesut Ozil

Mesut Ozil has such a wonderful opportunity to put the doubters to bed against Manchester City but he couldn’t have done much worse, really. After an entire season of sub-par influence, he finally ran into some inspiring form against Everton and Swansea, but then City came and popped his balloon.

Not only did they pop it, though, they stomped it into the ground, set it on fire and pissed on the ashes. And just like that, Ozil has fallen all the way back down to the point where people want him gone all over again.

Ozil will always create chances. No one can take that away from him. He does that better than anyone else. But there is so much more to the game of football than creating chances, especially for a club like Arsenal that needs all hands on deck at literally all times. You simply can’t waste a starting XI spot on someone who only does one thing in particular.

And the worst part is there is no guarantee he will even do that one thing, as we saw against City. He created all of zero chances.

Ozil is in a really tough spot, because I’m not sure where he goes in January and, if he stays, he better find some sort of consistency, otherwise it could get really ugly.

(Andy: 19th; Josh 20th)