Arsenal close ranks around Ozil – but do problems lie ahead?
Emery backs ‘family’ to lift midfielder’s spirits German must adapt to pressing style of play
The message to Mesut Ozil, from his new manager and his old teammates, has been emphatic: welcome home. Bruised by a summer of stress and isolation, Ozil has arrived on Arsenal’s pre-season tour of Singapore to find a manager who is desperate to show him the love.
“All of us want to help Mesut feel like it is home here,” Unai Emery said. “Like a family, and it is a family for every player.”
After retiring from international football amid claims that he had experienced “racism and disrespect” from the German Football Association, Ozil could be forgiven for craving a few home comforts.
Emery’s open arms were no doubt intended to ease the tension, as were the words of support from team-mates such as Petr Cech and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
“We are going to support him and make sure he feels right to perform at his best and feels comfortable,” Cech said. Mkhitaryan added that “we always support and we respect him. We are standing next to him and that is it”.
On Monday, the day after Ozil joined his team-mates, Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis reportedly delivered an impassioned defence of the playmaker at a team barbecue.
The club will be hoping that the affection for Ozil will make the Ger- man feel like he is returning to what his manager describes as “normality”. Indeed, the cynics would say that Ozil has grown used to receiving such warm treatment from Arsenal, the club who earlier this year agreed to pay him £350,000 per week.
Away from the pitch, then, all seems to be as it was and Ozil will surely be buoyed by the support in his disagreement with the German FA, which has “emphatically rejected” his allegations of racism.
On the pitch, however, Ozil might find that his Arsenal “home” feels rather different this season. With a new manager in the dugout, the demands on the German are likely to drastically change over the coming weeks.
Emery made his intentions clear as early as May, when he was first unveiled as Arsene Wenger’s replacement. “The history here is one thing,” he said. “They love to play with possession of the ball. I like this personality and when we do not have the ball I want a squad with intensive pressure. Two important things are possession of the ball and pressing when you have not got it.”
He later added that he wants the squad to be “very, very intensive with pressing” and, according to reports from Singapore, the buzzwords of Emery’s sessions have been “press, press and press”.
Ozil has many talents, but it is hardly controversial to say that “intensive pressing” has never been among them. Uli Hoeness, the Bayern Munich president, certainly contributed to this perception by saying this week that Bayern have regularly targeted Ozil as Arsenal’s “weak point”.
Last season, Ozil made fewer tackles per game than offensive and midfield colleagues such as Alexandre Lacazette, Mkhitaryan, Alex Iwobi, Danny Welbeck, Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka. Of the creative midfielders in Arsenal’s side, including Welbeck, only Iwobi made fewer interceptions per game.
Emery will be expecting these metrics to rise this season as Ozil adapts to his approach. The former Sevilla and Paris St-germain manager appears to be dreaming of a high-pressing style of play which is similar to the likes of Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, and Ozil will need to show he can cope.
The creative forces at those clubs are players like Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva at Manchester City, and Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen at Spurs. All of them made significantly more tackles, interceptions and ball recoveries than Ozil last season and all of them covered considerably more ground per game. Last season, that would have been expected, given the respective managers. This time around, Ozil will be asked to compete with them.
Emery, for his part, appears confident this will happen. “He has experience, he has quality and he has a great mentality,” the Arsenal manager said. “We are going to help him feel good and show his quality. I am sure he is going to have a big season with us.”
Emery is, of course, glad to have a player of this calibre. But he will now need to see how Ozil, the player who is perhaps least suited to his methods, reacts to life at the new Arsenal. The German has been welcomed back off the pitch, but on the grass it might not be “home” as he knows it.