Arsenal: No, we absolutely do not need a “new” Mesut Ozil

Arsenal have supposedly identified a “new” Mesut Ozil, but I am in no way interested in signing the reincarnation of a bad fit for the club.

Arsenal are undoubtedly pondering how best to move on from Mesut Ozil. It’s been long, long, long overdue that the club find a new way to create chances, whether that means focusing on a new player or changing to an entirely new set-up.

That doesn’t mean we need to do a like-for-like switch and try to prop up a position that is no longer effective. That doesn’t mean that the No. 10 role can’t live again, but it won’t live the way Ozil kept it alive at Real Madrid.

That shop has sailed off to the Undying Lands and isn’t coming back, ever. Because that’s how it works in Middle Earth. So anyone who is being touted as a “new” Mesut Ozil has zero appeal to me. Because when I think of Ozil, I think of an illustrious career in La Liga and internationally with Germany, as well as six good months of a half decade career at the Emirates.

No, what we need isn’t a new Mesut Ozil, but a modern rendition on the role. Something that someone like Emile Smith Rowe might be able to rock out, if he can develop properly.

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It used to be that Kevin De Bruyne and Mesut Ozil were contemporaries. They both played the same role and they were always neck and neck with assists and creation. That didn’t last long. And it didn’t last long because De Bruyne turned the position around and made the Ozil way obsolete. So why keep clinging to it when we’ve seen it done much better?

Ozil can’t play the role like De Bruyne can. Sorry, he just can’t. Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta are both trying to make it happen, but it just won’t.

That’s why I don’t want a new Ozil. Unless it’s just poor marketing of the kid and he’s a “new and improved” Ozil, or maybe a “new and more malleable” Ozil. That would appeal, but re-upping on a failed endeavor is hardly a good way to move the club forward. Especially with an attack that’s wilting.

Thankfully, both Joe Willock and Smith Rowe, both of whom have also played the No. 10 role, play it more along the lines of De Bruyne than Ozil. It’s just a matter of who can step up and, if no one, who can be brought into play it like them, just more successfully.