Arsenal: Mesut Ozil right in line with Laurent Koscielny

Arsenal fans are lashing out at a handful of players in particular after Southampton, Mesut Ozil being one, but they need to chill the hell out.

Arsenal fans are a fickle bunch (which I’m pretty sure is the way I’ve started my highest percentage of articles), and as such, they are always going to play the blame game after a loss. It’s just been awhile, so I’ve forgotten how horrible it is.

After Southampton, blame flew across the board, landing primarily on Granit Xhaka (surprise!), Bernd Leno, Laurent Koscielny and Mesut Ozil. I’ve written at length about why each individual on that list should be spared the pointlessness of assigning blame, save one – Mesut Ozil.

I consider my self a very objective fan of Mesut Ozil. I am not a blinded, die-hard, Ozil-can-do-no-wrong kind of person, but I’m also not the other wide. I appreciate with wariness, ever since he arrived.

That said, I find myself drawn to defend Ozil’s brief performance against Southampton for the same reason I found myself defending Laurent Koscielny, albeit on a smaller scale.

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Koscielny was pretty poor all game, but he had been out for eight months. Rust is a real thing, it happens, and it happens even more to older players like Koscielny. Once he shakes that rust off, he will be good as new.

Ozil has been out for a couple weeks now, so rust was also with him. When he first got on the pitch, I was moaning and groaning with the rest of them, but as he settled into the attack, he actually did quite well for himself, creating a couple excellent chances and playing some superb dummies to invigorate an attack that had suddenly gone stale.

Just like Koscielny needs time to shake off the rust – and a longer period of time given the lay-off – Ozil, too, needed time and, by the end of the game, he had disposed of the rust and looked like his usual creative self.

I mentioned a few days back (maybe a week, who knows), that there is an Ozil-sized gap in this team, where chance creation has seemingly fallen off. From what I saw against the Saints, I’m actually more excited to see him back out on the pitch than dreading.

Of course, Ozil has proven wiser men than me wrong in the past, so it’s not like I’d be surprised if he came out flat in the next one. I’m just too optimistic to settle on that concept.