Arsenal: James Rodriguez for Mesut Ozil can help make the pain go away

Arsenal are in a pickle, though not an insurmountable one. That said, if they want to alleviate the panic a bit, swapping out Mesut Ozil for James Rodriguez is one way to do it.

The new preamble to all of my articles recently has been the same – nothing that is happening at Arsenal right now can’t be fixed. This is all temporary, it’s all part of the build-up towards a new era with Unai Emery at the helm of the club.

Honestly, I’m not even that worried that the club is broke this month. This is Arsenal, they will always come out on their feet. They will never actually sink. It just doesn’t happen.

That said, there is plenty of reason for there to be kernels of concern around the club. Notice, I said kernels, not anything drastic or irreparable. The only thing that I think needs serious fixing is Mesut Ozil, and that is an easy enough solution – ditch him.

As it stands, I don’t even care if we replace him. Let youth rule the club, give them a chance, if nothing comes of it, brush it off as part of the experiment and address it at a later date. There is no need to change the trajectory before it even gets started.

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That said, if we can flip Ozil and replace him with James Rodriguez, I’d say a lot of the humdrum mumbles of discontent will flutter away like the drunk butterflies that they are.

Obviously, the likelihood of this happening is thin as can be. But the fact that there is any chance at all is why I’m sitting here talking about it.

Mesut Ozil doesn’t play. When he does play, it’s a coin flip if he will be a ghost or a masterclass. But it’s skewing in favor of the former lately. Ozil is not the future of the club because he isn’t even the present of the club.

James Rodriguez is an international superstar of the same caliber as Ozil. You swap the two out, and you lose nothing and gain everything. You keep the star power, you get a player more apt to play in the Emery style of things and you get the fresh injection of a new face at a new club – a boost that any new player brings.

Again… is it possible? Probably not. But a lot of those naysayers will shut the hell up with a swap like this.