Arsenal: The enigmatic Mesut Ozil just rumbles on

Mesut Ozil turned 31 on Tuesday. As is customary, messages wishing him happy birthday poured in. But while the adulation was great, the enigmatic impact of the Arsenal midfielder on the pitch persists.

It took me some time to come to the realisation that Arsenal had signed Mesut Ozil. A bonafide world star. A Real Madrid regular. A popular, well-respected, loved footballer. An eventual World Cup winner.

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Ozil arrived in north London at a time when players of his ilk did not come to Arsenal. Robin van Persie, the only elite player at the club, had just left, moving to direct rivals Manchester United in search of a genuine title chance. He would win the Premier League the very next season. The Gunners had good players, sometimes great players. But they never had true, unbridled superstars. And that is precisely what Ozil was.

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Fast forward seven years and Ozil is no longer the superstar that fans believed him to be. Still a player of unique quality and capability, his production has never matched his potential and his standing in world football, and now at the club, has slipped ever since. Ozil is now not a first-team regular — he hasn’t been ever since Unai Emery inherited Arsene Wenger’s mantle. He is no longer the driving force of the team, the spearhead face who leads the club into battle. Rarely is he compared to the best creative players the world has to offer, the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, David Silva and even, dare I say it, Christian Eriksen, separating themselves as the premier attacking midfielders in England. The superstar Ozil, then, is no more.

But the superstar moments that comprise a player of his ilk are still there. If you look close enough, if you peer between the disappointments and prise open the criticism, you can see the glistening Ozil performances. They are just far less frequent than what they used to be.

https://twitter.com/Arsenal/status/1183985856304074753

And this is the enigmatic conundrum that Ozil poses. A player of such irrefutable skill and ability; an asset of such diminishing value and impact. How can the two compute? They seem mutually exclusive? And yet, in Ozil, both are wholly and so painfully exercised.

This week, Ozil turned 31. As is customary, well wishes and social media posts and carefully crafted hype videos all surfaced, all celebrating the fleeting brilliance that Ozil produced over the years. They are wonderful to behold. They take you back to those jaw-dropping, eye-bulging experiences, where you watch a player manipulating a ball and his opponents in a manner that doesn’t quite seem to abide by the laws of physics.

But fleeting moments are not what footballers are paid to do. Consistency is king. And Ozil is paid a whole hefty sum. Much has been made of his £350,000 per week wages, and justifiably so, given the budget-splintering impact of them. And the wage only adds to the murky waters of the Ozil enigma.

All in all, Ozil is brilliant, beffudling, uniquely wonderful and woefully frustrating, all wrapped into one complicated and confusing footballer. And the enigma just rumbles on, year after year.