Arsenal: Mesut Ozil making things awkward in a good way

Arsenal will have Mesut Ozil in contention to start against Tottenham, which is great and all, but how do you make that formation work, exactly?

Unai Emery announced in the lead-up to the North London Derby that Mesut Ozil has been training well and is in contention to be included for the crucial clash with Tottenham, so now Arsenal have the somewhat awkward problem of figuring out if he is worth the effort and, if so, where we are going to fit him.

Mesut Ozil’s absence from Arsenal thus far into the season really hasn’t been missed. It’s been more of a curiosity. I must admit that even I am curious if he will find more success with a front three like we have, but my curiosity often goes… disappointed.

That said, we know he is a tremendous player, we know what he is capable of, and given the nature of the Tottenham match, we should at least explore the option of a starting XI with him in it.

The thing is, first priority has to go towards deploying the front three of Nicolas Pepe, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. That’s priority No. 1. If those three play together, we will score goals guaranteed.

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The question is how you want to line up behind that, whether you take a traditional 4-3-3 set or a 4-2-3-1 like Wenger loved to use. One obviously allows for Ozil, one obviously doesn’t.

It comes down to what kind of presence you want to have in the midfield. Because if you go with a two-deep midfield, slotting Granit Xhaka next to either Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira or Joe Willock, you run the risk of losing the battle for the midfield and you also lose the presence of Dani Ceballos.

I would love to say that the 4-3-3 just works better, using Xhaka, Ceballos and a wrecker like Torreira. That trio strikes me as just as exciting as our front three. Well, almost.

But that eliminates the potential of Ozil starting.

It’s a selection crisis, the likes of which we love to have. Because Ozil, until he proves otherwise (again), is a good option to have, though in this one, I think you have to have him on the bench, making whatever impact he is going to make coming on as a sub.

It’s good that he’s back. It’s even better if he’s hungry to earn back his spot. But that doesn’t mean we go out of the way to please him.