Gunners firing on all cylinders pose questions over Mesut Ozil’s future
Even if Ozil is given green light to return there are no guarantees that Emery will pick the German
Mesut Ozil has missed Arsenal’s last four matches and may be absent again when the Gunners host Huddersfield Town today. The 30-year-old playmaker is being treated for a back problem and manager Unai Emery has hinted that he could be passed fit if he comes through yesterday’s sessions with the club’s physiotherapist unscathed.
The German had been on the training ground on Thursday “running and touching the ball”, Emery told a press conference. But even if Ozil is given the green light to return there are no guarantees that Emery will pick the club’s highest earner, even for the bench. That despite being a World Cup winner in 2014, and a player with skills few others on the planet can reproduce, especially when it comes to setting up colleagues to score. Emery, it seems, had already decided he could do without the former Germany international in his comprehensive overhaul of a squad that had forgotten how to win trophies under previous manager Arsene Wenger.
It was the Frenchman who had sanctioned a salary-doubling, £350,000-a-week, three-year contract extension for Ozil just three months before stepping down as manager. Ozil’s omission from the starting line-up at Bournemouth on November 25 was the big reveal to a world that could not fail to notice.
Emery’s explanation could hardly be misinterpreted either: Ozil was named on the bench — and left there for the entire game — at Bournemouth because his manager felt he could not deal with the “physicality and intensity” of the Gunners’ opponents.
Few failed to notice at the time that the reason for his omission carried little weight as Bournemouth are one of the least aggressive in the Premier League. His absence mattered little as the Gunners’ unbeaten run simply carried on without him. The Gunners can take that to 21 matches against the Terriers with Ozil’s return to the side likely to be delayed till they play Qarabag in the Europa League next week. Wenger, in his final season, used the competition to keep fresh fringe men he had decided not to employ in the Premier League even though three of them — England duo Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere plus Olivier Giroud of France — were internationals of experience and reputation.
Ozil is not the only world class player to suddenly find themselves unable to get into the starting elevens, Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku and ex-Gunner Alexis Sanchez falling foul of the volatile Jose Mourinho at Manchester United. Emery wants his players to work hard off the ball and attack with intensity with it and Ozil, for all his attributes, seems to tick neither of those boxes. Ozil’s post-World Cup fall out with Germany cannot have helped either, coming at a time when every Arsenal player knew he had to impress the new man after years of inertia under Wenger.
The player felt he was the victim of both racism and disrespect because of his Turkish roots, claiming “I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose”. Such sentiments were no doubt genuine and deserving of sympathy but Emery appears to care about one issue only: whether a player can thrive under his system. The answer to that, at the moment at least, appears to be no for Mesut Ozil.
ARSENAL PLAYERS FILMED USING ‘HIPPY CRACK’
Meanwhile, Arsenal said yesterday they will “remind players of their responsibilities” after a video emerged that appears to show a number of stars inhaling nitrous oxide. Players including Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Matteo Guendouzi feature in the footage, which appears to come from CCTV footage and was published by the Sun newspaper.
In a statement Arsenal said: “The players will be spoken to about this and reminded of their responsibilities as representatives of the club.”
Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas or “hippy crack”, is freely available although it is technically illegal to sell it for recreational purposes. In the video, which reportedly comes from a London venue shortly before the start of the current season, other Gunners players including Henrikh Mkhitaryan can be seen rejecting the offer to use the gas.
The footage is the latest to show top players being linked with nitrous oxide. Raheem Sterling was warned by his then club Liverpool after footage emerged of him using the substance in 2015. In the same year, Jack Grealish was warned by the then Aston Villa manager, Tim Sherwood, after pictures emerged of him appearing to inhale the gas, and Saido Berahino was reprimanded by West Brom for a similar incident in 2014.
When an image was posted of then Tottenham player Kyle Walker in 2013, apologised on Twitter.