Ozil style facing extinction at highest level of modern game
Midfielder may have to evolve to prolong career No offers officially for German, admits Wenger
DEPUTY FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT
As Arsène Wenger stood up to leave his weekly newspaper briefing on Thursday, there was a final question about Mesut Özil. Have there actually been any offers for him? “No – not officially,” replied Wenger, suggesting some knowledge of discreet inquiries but no certainty that the club’s £42.5 million record signing has an attractive exit route even if he remains unwilling to sign a new contract.
With Chelsea, Juventus, Paris StGermain and Manchester City taking a rather closer interest in Alexis Sánchez’s negotiations, it does all prompt a question that stretches beyond simply Özil’s dip in form.
It is whether the specialist No 10, particularly those in the more languid and purely creative style, could be facing extinction at the highest levels of football.
This has happened before to a certain prototype of player, notably the more diminutive second striker like Michael Owen, whose key skill of simply scoring goals became almost a luxury in an era of more multifunctional lone centre-forwards.
So must an assist-specialist like Özil now evolve in order to prolong his career at the very top? The top of the Premier League suggests so. Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has constructed a system that dispenses with a central playmaker while an attacking midfielder like Dele Alli at Tottenham also delivers an added physicality and versatility.
Indeed, at every club in the current top five of the Premier League, it feels like the core demands and expectations on the creative players still begin with their contribution out of possession.
Wenger was accused previously of indulging the likes of Andrei Arshavin and Lukas Podolski and, although again publicly supportive this week of Özil’s contribution, the recent tweak of system away from a specialist No 10 position surely amounts to a verdict of sorts. Özil has now moved to the right of the main striker in a 3-4-2-1 formation but a league assist tally this season of six – compared to 19 last year – enhances a suspicion that the evermore intense pressing style of rivals has been a limiting factor.
Wenger rightly points out that “the big players get more criticised than the others – they carry the responsibility”, but his response to a question about whether Özil relished such a spotlight also felt tell- ing. “I don’t know, I’m not sure,” he said. “I think he embraces the challenge to play big games. Does he embrace the challenge to be criticised? I’m not sure. I felt after the Bayern game he suffered for a few games but he came back. I think he did fight very hard. We looked at his physical performances and they were at a very high level.”
Some statistics do back up Wenger’s claim that Özil’s body language can make him appear less urgent and more anonymous than he really is. He consistently covers greater distances than Sánchez, while no player in the Premier League has made more passes in an opponent’s half.
It is worth also remembering how Özil was so effective at Real Madrid under a manager – Jose Mourinho – who would never tolerate any lack of effort. A total of 84 caps and counting in one of Germany’s most successful teams tells a similar story but perhaps also underlines how, rather like a luxury oil, his impact depends on the engine around him.
Özil revealed in his recent autobiography how Mourinho once called him a “coward” before mocking his tackling style and Wenger agrees that Özil needs “tough love” at times. “His style is his style and what you measure with Mesut Özil is the efficiency,” said Wenger. “His basic quality is retention and the creation of goal chances. We are only human beings and you have to accept the ups and downs.”
The downs are currently outweighing the ups and Özil is now approaching a defining juncture in his career. At 28, his next contract should include the prime years of his career and yet there is now a question mark over whether Arsenal should commit such resource to a player who is perhaps at risk of becoming outdated in the modern game.
It is more than a month since Özil delivered his last assist and, for himself just as much as Arsenal, a reminder against Manchester United tomorrow of his matchwinning qualities could hardly be more timely.