Arsenal vs Crystal Palace: What will Mesut Ozil do next?

Arsenal’s next test comes against Crystal Palace, a team that should be within the Gunners’ wheelhouse. So what part will Mesut Ozil play?

Arsenal are looking for their twelfth straight win. I don’t know when the last time I typed “twelfth” is, but it certainly wasn’t in relation to a win streak for the Gunners. Yet here we are.

And one of the main reasons we are here, and not trying to pick up the pieces after a disappointing Leicester City draw/loss is because Mesut Ozil decided that he didn’t want to draw or lose to Leicester City. He wanted to win.

I don’t usually lose my mind for 45-50 minutes worth of play. I try to take the match as a whole and, as a whole, Ozil had his downfalls, including being anonymous for the first half hour. But after that, something in him changed. He became the magical Mesut Ozil that we’ve all been dying to see.

But it’s also an Ozil we have seen before. An Ozil we are often left starving for. It begs to be pointed out that the only reason that we starve after this version of Ozil so much is because we are so often deprived of it.

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No one keeps up that level of play every single minute. It’s impossible. But Ozil’s inconsistency has been on a different level than other superstars. He is either brilliant, or he disappears. There is no middle ground.

Which is what makes this match against Crystal Palace so interesting. We, as fans, are undoubtedly sitting here thinking that Ozil has turned a corner, that what happened against Leicester was truly special. And it was. I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen him look as happy as he did when he was hugging Aubameyang after the third goal.

But, while I hate to sound like a downer, we need to step into reason and understand what the past has warned us about – that Ozil doesn’t usually keep that level of performance consistently. In fact, he never does. And there never seems to be any rhyme or reason as to when he performs and when he doesn’t.

Crystal Palace is a big deal for Ozil. Once is a fluke, twice is coincidence, three times is something to pay attention to. You can’t get to three if you don’t get past two.

I want nothing more than to believe in Ozil again, and Crystal Palace is a step towards making that a reality.