Arsenal: 3 biggest disappointments of the season thus far

1. Mesut Ozil

You probably saw this coming. It’s hard to imagine a bigger disappointment than our highest-paid player being our most unreliable contributor. He scored his first goal of the season in late February against Newcastle United. His first Premier League goal since April of 2019. Meanwhile he’s got just the one assist on the year, and no matter how many ‘key passes’ he wracks up, he continues to fail in creating actual big chances.

Ozil has seen his situation drastically improve since Mikel Arteta took over, but his performance has hardly changed. He had a few good matches under Unai Emery too, matches that strung together to make us believe that maybe something was changing.

Again, we were proven wrong. Ozil probably isn’t up to snuff for the Premier League. I don’t know why I even said probably.

I was enthused by Newcastle, of course. And I’ll be enthused every time Ozil has a positive performance. But I also have to keep in mind that he’s been pretty terrible all season long. It’s disappointing, but it’s also not that surprising. Still, the return on investment is astoundingly low, even for someone who had very little expectations coming into the year.