Arsenal: Mesut Ozil and Unai Emery will never escape the truth

Arsenal gave Mesut Ozil his first start of the season and in that opportunity we yet again learned nothing new about the German maestro.

I don’t know what it is about every time Mesut Ozil steps out there for Arsenal, but each time, it’s brimming with optimism. I feel like we’re about to see a masterclass. That lurking potential for something truly special still exists, despite over five years of inconsistency.

It was the same story against Watford. With his most talented teammates out on the pitch with him, I expected Mesut Ozil to do something big. He had to, right? So many opportunities handed to him, eventually he has to click it into place right?

Yet again, I unfortunately have to say, “Wrong.”

Ozil had one great pass against Watford and a couple subtle, nuanced positives. His pass to Ainsley Maitland-Niles to set up the second goal was pristine, and it’s exactly what you would expect Ozil to do.

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He had some cute dummies, some nice touches, some suave jigs.

But he also fell down on a fast break and lost possession. He also did his token throwing up of his arms after getting muscled off the ball. He still turned irrelevant when the match started to get away from the Gunners and when he was finally taken off, I hadn’t seen or heard from him in about twenty minutes.

Essentially, it was your typical Mesut Ozil performance where he averages out around a 6/10. he steps in to the spotlight enough to remind us what he can do, but he struggles to acclimate enough to remind us of what he can’t do.

He is as he has been for awhile now—a very limited player. And no matter what kind of optimism bubbles up before any given match, I have to believe the overwhelming sense of dread that accompanies and often overshadows. Ozil will have his moments, and as long as the game is in a good place, he will have some fun and give us something nice to look at. But shake those perfect conditions and everything else falls to pieces as well.

I admire Unai Emery’s attempts to get Ozil into a place where things can work. I really do. He’s making the most of a rather poor situation, but at the end of the day, you can only read the same old clues so many ways before you start going insane trying to make them say something else.