The calls for bringing back Mesut Ozil to the first team at Arsenal are becoming louder by the day. As each defeat sinks in, the clamour for the German’s return gathers pace.
Arsenal have quite possibly the worst creative midfield in living memory. An assortment of ill-fitting parts that can neither convincingly defend nor attack and the failure to find a replacement for the number ten during Ozil’s exile has highlighted the tactical naivety during the summer transfer window by the management above.
The club, not Arteta, decided to exclude the side’s leading playmaker for the Premier League squad, which I suppose is fair enough, but not having a ready-made option to compliment one of the world’s best strikers was simply incompetent. This criticism is not aimed at Arteta, this is at the club that failed to him. They failed to allow Unai Emery to select his transfer targets and they aren’t ing Arteta either.
I’m sick to the back teeth of hearing about self-sustaining models while the likes of Tottenham are at the top of the Premier League table. I’m tired of the excuses after knowing that Arsenal’s rivals spent £1b on a new stadium and still managed to spend £28.8m on Giovani Lo Celso, £14.9m on Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg, as well as buying Sergio Reguilón and Steven Bergwijn for £27m each. Tell me how they can manage that and Arsenal can’t?
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Of course, the return of Mesut Ozil to the first team isn’t a foregone conclusion, even with the current predicament at Arsenal because of the complex nature of the fallout. I’ve written about this in great detail and won’t rehash it here, but Ozil’s decision to the Uighur Muslims in China cost Arsenal a lot of money in TV rights and the relationship has been dreadful ever since.
However, should Arsenal not buy at least two creative midfield options in January, the stage is still set for his return which would be a major embarrassment for the club, worse than paying the player £350,000 per week to stay at home to play X-Box and tend his lilies.
Is there one last turn in this sad affair that saw a player of Ozil’s talent become an unwanted burden? Who knows but the pressure mounts every time Arsenal fails to score and with every loss they incur. Those that didn’t mention Mesut Ozil’s name at a time when Arsenal picked up two trophies in 8 weeks are now starting to look at him as some kind of saviour.
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His name comes up more often in conversation and is on the lips of those disenchanted fans that are of a changeable mind or require instant gratification. The rumblings of discontent are growing and it’s hard not to listen, even though you know that Ozil had little influence on the team for some time.
Yet, some will say that desperate times call for desperate measures and the club owes it to the fans to do what’s in the club’s best interest. It doesn’t work like that does it, wake up!
