Enigma of Ozil haunts Wenger
ARSENE WENGER says his playmaker lacks Santi Cazorla. Jose Mourinho is more forthright in accusing him of lacking courage.
But still Mesut Ozil remains an enigma.
The Germany star can produce the most magical moment of skill to polish off a goal or open up a defence. But seldom in the big games.
In his forthcoming autobiography, serialised in the German press, Ozil himself recounts the time that his former Real Madrid manager Mourinho stood eyeball-to-eyeball with him in the dressing room and accused him of being a “coward” and a “crybaby”.
When Wenger is asked why it is that Ozil is not producing the magic, he just exhales sadly. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” he says. “I think confidence plays a part. Ozil is a guy who needs possession and with possession he is a marvellous player.
“Did I expect a big game mentality when I signed him? Yes. But he has been analysed a lot. He suffered a lot from the loss of Cazorla because Cazorla in deep midfield can get you out of pressure.
“He gets the ball played through to a player who is higher up and then Ozil is a player who, with the timing of the pass, with the ball at the right moment, he can always do damage.
“He had 17 or 18 assists last year, he has less this year, but especially his numbers dropped as I told you since we had less collective possession in deep midfield, providing less ammunition for the high midfield.
“But I don’t want to make a debate about one player before a game like this. It’s not Ozil alone who will win us the game. It’s a strong team performance.
“Everybody owes us a performance. If you play for Arsenal, you always owe us a performance. You cannot say you want to play for Arsenal and not perform.” It was actually 19 assists in Premier League games in 2015-16, more than he has produced
in the rest of his near four-year Arsenal career put together. But this year he has gone off the boil and has been particularly conspicuous by his absence in the big games away from the Emirates.
Today, he travels with the rest of the team to Liverpool but he is outside his comfort zone as soon as he leaves London. It is now well over a year since Ozil was last involved in a Premier League goal outside the M25.
In two of their last three away defeats, the Gunners have even taken the lead only to surrender tamely while at Chelsea they were played off the park from the opening exchanges.
But now Wenger insists he has had enough of the awayday blues and this week he has said his piece about addressing the issue.
“It is always a mindset,” he said. “How do you get it out of players? By making them conscious of it. What is linked many times with a lack of belief is a passive mode and not being proactive enough. You have to make things happen.
“What is most important for me now is the attitude to just go for it, go and take.
“We lost at Everton and Manchester City after being 1-0 up and basically it is because maybe we were not in the proactive position after we were 1-0 up, we were too passive.
“After that, we lost at Chelsea under special circumstances, a little bit.
“I agree that we didn’t look like we played with enough freedom or enough belief that we would just turn up and do it, and that is what we want to add to our game.”