Arsenal Vs Chelsea: Marvellous Mesut Ozil is majestic… again

Mesut Ozil was simply sublime in Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea on Wednesday night. This is becoming a running theme for a player who could leave at any moment.

Mesut Ozil was at his elegant best on Wednesday night. The 2-2 draw with Chelsea was entertaining in its drama, its controversy, and its action. But there was more than just gasping thrills to make the heart flutter. This wasn’t the ding-dong battle down the local field on a cold, crisp, muddy Sunday morning. There was an element of quality that only enriched the excitement that unfolded.

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Primarily, that quality came through two players — the aforementioned Ozil, on the Arsenal half of the equation, and Eden Hazard, Chelsea’s more direct, stockier, but equally brilliant answer to the German. Both were playing at the top of their game and, irrespective of the result, it was wonderful to watch.

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Ozil, in particular, was embedded in the heart of everything that Arsenal did. With Arsene Wenger choosing to mirror Antonio Conte’s 3-5-2, fielding Ozil in a slightly deeper position than what would be asked of him in a 3-4-3, the midfielder benefitted from more frequent touches of the ball — no player had touched the ball more than Ozil at half-time.

This allowed him to survey the field and, with an anticipatory sense, seek out the spaces in behind the Chelsea midfield later in the attacking moves. In particular, Tiemoue Bakayoko, who is a more surging type of midfielder than the industry that Conte perhaps was striving for on Wednesday, was dragged relentlessly in and out of his position by Ozil. It was if he was being puppeteered by his opponent, with Ozil able to glide his way into the spaces that his strings had pulled Bakayoko out of.

The problem, though, for Arsenal, is that, unlike in previous seasons and stretches of good form, where his commitment and his influence has fluttered in and out of periods of mastery, Ozil is consistently performing at his unquenchably high level.

And that is worrying. Ozil could have just played his last game for the North London club. With only six months remaining on his current contract and very little known about his state of mind, there is the chance that Arsenal could choose to sell. Now, it would be a surprise if, by next weekend, Ozil was plying his trade at Old Trafford and not the Emirates. But it is a portrayal of the precariousness of the situation. His future is far from certain.

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For now, we should simply be glad that we get to gander at such a wonderful player. Football really is the beautiful game when it is played by people like Ozil. But it may not be beautiful for long at Arsenal. That is a major worry.