Arsenal: All you need to know about Mesut Ozil’s “tantrum”

Arsenal star Mesut Ozil threw a bit of a fit when being subbed off against Crystal Palace, but don’t buy into the narrative, this is all you need to know.

Arsenal‘s match-up with Crystal Palace was a massively frustrating one. On the one hand, the result may have represented the flow of the game, on the other, Palace only scored twice because of two questionable penalty calls.

But sandwiched in the middle of those penalties was a side narrative that everyone is going to want to spin to fit their own prerogative. Mesut Ozil was subbed off in the 67th minute and proceeded to show his displeasure at being subbed off by tossing his gloves and storming to the bench.

That is what happened. As far as what that means, let me tell you. That means that Ozil was mad that, after having such a beautiful match against Leicester, he wasn’t able to follow up with a similar performance against Palace.

That means that Ozil wanted to stay in the game. He wanted to make a bigger impact. He wanted to be able to come away smiling when his influence affected the game like it did against the Foxes.

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It means that Unai Emery isn’t afraid to upset his star players by making changes he deems necessary. Arsene Wenger would have never dared to sub off Ozil, but Emery has shown a knack for it. Against Leicester, Ozil was happy with his performance and came off fine. Against Palace, he was not happy with his individual performance, or the state of the match itself, and he showed it.

What this doesn’t mean is that Ozil is unhappy at the club. Sure, we have seen Alexis throw similar tantrums in his time with the Gunners, but those were different. Those were way too frequent and always seemed to come no matter the state of the match itself. Ozil’s was merited, it isn’t seen that often, and the state of the match reflects his frustration.

What this doesn’t mean is that Ozil is petulant, as some tried to say on Twitter. There is nothing petulant about being passionate, and that’s all Ozil was doing – he had been frustrated all match and when he was denied the chance to make up for it, he didn’t try to hold back how that made him feel.

Don’t go buying into the narratives. Everything that happened between Ozil, Emery and the club is perfectly acceptable, if not positive.