Arsenal: Can Mesut Ozil please go pout somewhere else?

Arsenal are struggling off the blocks, but Mesut Ozil is struggling tenfold. Which is fine. He needs to adjust. But he doesn’t need to pout like a child.

Arsenal’s first two matches have not gone according to plan. But honestly, it’s getting better. Some of the key players are finding themselves in a new system and that is going to take time. This is a long-term investment in a brand new philosophy.

That is going to take time. Especially for players like Granit Xhaka or Mesut Ozil, who are not high-effort players with work rates to die for. They are cerebral players, who take time on the ball and that’s perfectly fine. No one can fault them for who they are as individual players.

As such, they are going to take time to figure out how best to settle into that new system. For some players, it’s easy. Henrikh Mkhitaryan, for instance, already has a high work rate. Easy does it.

I don’t fault Ozil for struggling to find his footing. I fault him for the piss-poor attitude he is having in the process.

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Yes, we’ve talked about this before. We’ve had endless discussions about how Ozil has poor body language and how that can effect the team and the consensus has been “well, you have to get used to it, that’s who he is. He just looks disinterested.”

Again, that’s fine.

But when he was subbed off against Chelsea, when the score was 2-2 and it was still anyone’s game, Ozil looked like a child told that he couldn’t have a toy at the store. It was literally pathetic. When you’re coming off the pitch and your team is fighting for their life to get their first points of a very important season, the least you can do is muster up enough enthusiasm to applaud the away fans, who were fantastic, and welcome your team mate to the pitch.

That’s the least you can do. For Ozil, I wouldn’t ask him to get all fired up, that isn’t who he is. But please, for the love of everything, at the very least, you have to look like you care in the slightest. That you care about something other than your personal form.

No, he wasn’t having a good game. But the team was doing so much better, and his attitude was completely uncalled for. Go pout somewhere else, preferably far away from the pitch.