Arsenal: In defense of Mesut Ozil

The German midfielder is easily the most divisive figure at Arsenal, but the Mesut Özi conundrum says more about the club’s failures than the player.

September 2, 2013 was a magical day for Arsenal fans. The club had completed the signing of Mesut Özil from Real Madrid for £42.5m, nearly tripling their previous record of around £15m for Andrey Arshavin back in 2009.

The deal was a sign of Arsenal’s continued status as one of Europe’s elite clubs; they had finally proven that they could splash the cash. To make things even sweeter, it was the same summer that Tottenham lost PFA player of the year Gareth Bale to the Spanish giants.

Fast forward to the summer of 2019 and the two clubs have practically swapped situations: Tottenham have just signed French midfielder Tanguy Ndombele for £55m after reaching a Champions League final, while Arsenal are struggling to get any business done at all.

The gap between Champions League and Europa League revenue over the past couple of seasons has proven to be massive, and if you haven’t already seen the numbers, Swiss Ramble’s thread on Twitter is a must read.

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One way Arsenal could raise some funds is by parting ways with Özil and his £350,000/week wages, and Fenerbahce are rumored to be interested in bringing him home to Turkey.

Most Arsenal fans are eager to cut their losses with the 30 year old, and while I don’t disagree that he should be sold if possible, I believe too much blame has been placed on the player for Arsenal’s shortcomings in recent seasons.

Of course, a salary like Özil’s brings astronomical expectations, but the reality is Arsenal were foolish to hand him that contract in the first place. Given our current financial situation, no player should be making that amount of money, period.

More importantly, Özil has never been the all-action midfielder that can consistently take a game by the scruff of the neck; rather, he thrives as the creative cog in a fully functioning team, which Arsenal have very rarely been in the past six years. The issue isn’t whether Özil is good enough for Arsenal; rather, Arsenal simply aren’t good enough to accommodate a player who requires a strong platform to allow him to flourish.

At Madrid he was a superb complementary star, in many ways the Robin to Ronaldo’s Batman. With the German national team, he was obviously surrounded by talent, but also by players with excellent character and leadership, such as Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

The closest this club came to providing Ozil with that platform was in the 2015/16 season; the German racked up an astonishing 16 assists in his first 19 matches of the season, and the Gunners were looking like serious title contenders. But Santi Cazorla’s injury problems led to a noticeable decline in form, for both Özil and the rest of the team, and it was Leicester City’s year instead.

Last season, Özil often found himself out of favor with Unai Emery, but even when he did play he wasn’t very productive, contributing just six goals and three assists in over 30 appearances in all competitions.

However, some of this can be attributed to Emery’s more simplified attacking style, where the instruction was to constantly recycle the ball out wide and get crosses or cutbacks into the box. Unsurprisingly, this coincided with players like Sead Kolasinac and Alex Iwobi having statistically better seasons in a system with no real place for a No. 10 like Özil.

As it stands, Arsenal are no longer one of Europe’s elite clubs, and the squad needs a major overhaul, Özil included. However, this is more of an indictment of the club’s failure to build a cohesive, functioning team than it is of Özil himself.