Arsenal: The Mesut Ozil mess, all over again

Mesut Ozil has not travelled for Arsenal’s Europa League match against Eintracht Frankfurt because he must be ‘rested’. This really is a mess, all over again.

You would be forgiven for thinking that a professional footballer can play two games in four days. But apparently, Arsenal and Mesut Ozil believe that they cannot.

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After making his first appearance of the season on Sunday, in which he was substituted after just 71 minutes, Ozil has now not travelled with the matchday squad for Thursday night’s trip to Eintracht Frankfurt for the opening Europa League group stage match.

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Speaking in his pre-match press conference, head coach Unai Emery confirmed that Ozil is not involved because he is being ‘rested’:

"“We are playing a lot of matches and I want to use different players and also we can have some rotation in the first XI. We have 19 players in the squad for tomorrow, Sokratis and Mesut are rested for the match <…> He [Ozil] played on Sunday now my focus is on tomorrow <…> The first game he played on Sunday he [Ozil] played physically well, giving us his capacity. His first minutes for us this season were good and now he will be helping us, not tomorrow, but Sunday we have another match. We are thinking to do some rotation in the first XI.”"

Given that he has played a little over an hour all season, it is hardly the most convincing reasoning. And this, as everyone knows, would not be the first time that Ozil has missed a match for curious reasons.

I do not want to speculate on why Ozil has not travelled with the team. There are plenty of possible reasons for this decision and I hope it is one of the more sensible ones. But from a more macro perspective, it is worrying that he is missing more games yet again.

Ozil missed the start of the season in the aftermath of the carjacking that took place in the summer. This absence was entirely justified, of course, but that cannot explain away the many odd absences throughout his now six years in north London. His weird illnesses, seeming relentless back problems, and sometimes just entire lack of commitment have seen him miss almost a third of games.

For someone who is being paid £350,000 per week, nearly more than double any other player in the squad, that is utterly unacceptable. If these absences were all entirely vindicated with sound reasoning, that is a very different debate. But they are not. And this is another example to file under ‘suspicious’.

The Ozil mess seems to be taking place all over again. And that is very problematic indeed. The quicker he starts delivering on his wage or his wage is rid from the already stretched books, the better.