Arsenal: The crucial difference between this and last year’s Mesut Ozil problem

Mesut Ozil is currently providing a problem for Unai Emery. There were moments last year when he did the same to Arsene Wenger. But there is a crucial difference this time around: Arsenal can sell him.

Mesut Ozil is a hindrance, not a help. I am routinely one of his most bullish supporters, often championing his quiet, overlooked influence on matches, shouting for his unique, creative quality, praising the need for a player of his special flair and unpredictability, even if it comes with moments of intense frustration.

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But at this point in time, the German is not helping Unai Emery’s Arsenal. He is harming it.

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There were points last season that Ozil was harming Arsene Wenger’s final iteration of this club. Although he ultimately signed a new contract and did play some phenomenal football at times, at others, there were plenty of fans, myself included, considering whether it would be best to move on.

And now, there are some arguing that it would again be best for Emery and the club to sell Ozil and enter into a new era. Here is Stan Collymore in his Daily Mirror column (I don’t necessarily agree with what he says, I am merely presenting his opinion as a representation of what some people believe regarding the current Ozil conundrum):

"“Arsenal should let Mesut Ozil go at the end of the season because he is not the soldier Unai Emery is going to need. He requires more than technique from Ozil. Emery needs grinders and grafters. Players with less technique than him but more energy, heart and spirit. Ozil has coasted for the last two or three years and so have Arsenal. But Emery will have no intention of doing the same. They should sit down with him, shake his hand and say tell him he is a cracking player, but also a luxury player Arsenal can’t afford right now.”"

Last season, there was a problem: to move on would have been to do so for nothing, or very little, should he have been sold in the January window. The club was in an extremely weak negotiating position. Potential buyers knew they could sign Ozil for nothing should he not sign a new contract and leave at the end of the season and Ozil could demand whatever wages he wanted, knowing that if Arsenal wanted to keep him, they would have to pay up. That drove the price down, drove the wages up and put the club into an extremely tight situation.

However, this time around, that same problem doesn’t exist to the same extent. Ozil signed a new three-and-a-half year deal. That means that, should Emery and Ivan Gazidis decide to try and sell the midfielder, they have a contract behind which they can engineer a far greater price. His wages will be an issue and suitors will be put off by them, that is unquestioned. But Ozil is a far greater value now than he was just six months ago.

Had Ozil been sold in January, for instance, Arsenal would have been lucky to squeeze £30 million. Now, they should be looking at at least £50 million thanks to the extended contract and the recent explosion in the market over the past few years. Whereas last year, allowing Ozil to leave offered a negligible gain, financially and on the pitch, now there is potential for both areas to benefit. Suddenly, the whole landscape is different.

Whether Ozil should be shopped or not is another question. I am still yet to make my mind up — he needs more time under Emery’s new system to prove that he can adapt to it and flourish in it. But there is now a clear benefit to shopping him, one that wasn’t there before, and that changes the nature of the question entirely.