Mesut Ozil’s return to first team action has been welcomed by Sokratis who insists the German remains very important to Arsenal.
While injury and illness have played a part, the midfielder’s lack of game time since the turn of the year has led to speculation that his days at the Emirates could be numbered.
True or not, the 30-year-old did play the full 90 minutes of last night’s 3-0 win over BATE Borisov, delivering a tidy performance that ended with an 89% pass completion rate, including 51 successful passes in the final third.
The playmaker’s contribution caught the eye of Sokratis, who came off the bench in the second half to head home his side’s third goal
“He played very good,” he said after the game. “Mesut is a fantastic player and when he is fit he is one of the most important players in the team. Of course when something is not going good, everybody is there to criticise but we have to see also what Mesut did in the last years for this team.
“All the team, all the players are behind him and we need a good Mesut to go (forward) because we know that he is very important for us.”
Sokratis also made clear that while his teammate may have been in and out of Emery’s matchday squads, he has continued to enjoy life at Arsenal.
“He was sick, he had some problems but after he came back for training,” explained the Greek.
“Now, he is good. He did well and I hope in the next games he will go forward like this. He enjoys (himself) and we enjoy that he is with us.
“But when you are injured, it is difficult. Mesut is very important, he is a very good guy and we need him.”
Arsenal’s reward for a 3-1 aggregate victory against the Belarussian is a last-16 draw with French side Rennes. Having initially been drawn at home in the first leg, it’s since been confirmed that we’ll start away.
When we lose, we don’t hear a peep. When we beat a low esteem Europa team, we get positive affirmation from every member of the squad.
I would rather everyone just shut up too.. and I’m not just talking about the Arse!
When we lose its bc we are rubbish.
When we win it’s bc opponents are rubbish.
Just shut it seriously.
In the case of Bate, it is a travesty to lose to them and a loss should generate extreme levels of anger. We are far better than that.
But if we win, it’s really not that impressive. We can’t give Arsenal plaudits for beating such a weak team.
Just like if arseblog fans formed a team and played Arsenal. It would be bad if they lost to us, but it would be expected if they beat us.
It’s the big games where your logic applies.
I understand what you’re saying but I don’t agree. Maybe part of the problem is that we have an inflated opinion of what our team can and cannot do. Of course they should have beat BATE or at least forced a draw last week but the fact that they didn’t and then had to step up and beat them on Thursday shouldn’t stop fans appreciating that they were able to do that. I’m not saying you personally are like this, but increasingly our fan base is full of a load of killjoys who don’t appear to enjoy watching our team… Read more »
This is BATE Borisov, If we can’t as fans of arsenal expect to beat this club as we did last season on both legs than there is something wrong with your perspective. I don’t have an expectation of beating every club. There are clubs especially in the lower tiers of Europe you should be expected to handle. There should also be certain way to play from my perspective lol now obviously if the club decides to hire managers that want to not play aggressive attacking football my perspective will change. Until Thani expect the club to be on the front… Read more »
oh Wait Sokratis, are you saying he was actually injured the past few weeks and not ready to play??
oh I thought he was benched because of Emery’s PSG complex of superstars, and his preference to antagonize top top top talent.
Sky is blue btw.Too much crack?
What the crack
Honestly this is worse than Wenger in / or out at this point. Every article & every game whether or not Ozil plays is now all about Ozil
I agree. And the worst part is, his actual footballing performances don’t deserve such division.
I kind of get why – people invested so much in him emotionally when he signed as he was supposed to bring the era of star names and competing for the PL and Champions League back to the club after years of paying of the stadium. He also is unique in that he has such a strong brand that there genuinely are people on here who are Ozil fans vs. Arsenal fans (as blogs pointed out several times).
But it’s still absolutely nuts – we’re not talking about Messi or Ronaldo here.
He was our best player against Bate and considering he hadn’t played for a while he did pretty well
No way he was our best player. I agree his performance was fine considering he hadn’t played in last few games. But saying he was the player on pitch last night is not true.
He was actually the worst player. Iwobi was outstanding though. @ inches away to be the Nigerian Messi
Yo Adrian!! (Rocky I) Are you having a fucking laugh “worst player”???
That was for Laca-Sead blx!
He gets the easiest games that you can play, home games against low opposition. Cardiff, Borisov etc. He doesn’t manage to score or create in these games but people are still trying to tell me how fantastic he was. It’s gotten beyond ridiculous, if you ask me. He’s a talented footballer. But he’s no where near as good to justify a) the money we’re paying him and b) all the trouble and discussions that are surrounding him.
Would just be happy if we could get rid of him in the summer and start to build a team for the future.
Berlingoon is absolutely right.
If anything, watching us play with Özil out of the team underlines how badly we need to strengthen and plan for life without him. Doesn’t mean Özil shouldn’t be an Arsenal player next season. Messi shows no signs of slowing down but Barca keep buying attacking players.
The idea is, a team should be able to play great football with or without it’s star player.
He is not consistently played by Emery, how do u expect he consistently put a consistent performance on a consistent basis?
He’s had enough games this season to prove whether he should or should not play. Early season he actually played fine and he was definitely part of the feel-good factor that surrounded the team. But I suspect when he found out he wasn’t always going to get a start that things started to go downhill between him and Emery. Hopefully they can work it out because we do need all our players going forward.
Let’s have an argument about who our best player was – shall we?? We won, “I’m happy not feeling sad got sunshine in a bag…” try to enjoy supporting the Arsenal is my advice and enjoy the ride! 🙂
What game did you watch? I’ve just finished re-watching the match and literally forgot that Ozil was on the pitch at one point. Perhaps with more game time he will get back to a level that at least sees him being one of our best players, but he’s not there quite yet.
Maybe it’s a language issue because emery insist that he has been training the past couple of weeks
Maybe his philosophy is to create chaos so we don’t know what’s going on
When in his eyes Suarez is a life saver for the club that should tell you all you need to know
Mesut is a player just like everyone else – no better and no worse.
All players are born equal, with the same amount of talent. This means that the hardest working ones are the best in the world!
Sometimes he’ll play, sometimes he’ll sit on the bench, depending on the ‘tactics’ for the day.
It’ll be like that, until he either leaves for a tidy sum, or willingly halves his wages, in which case he’ll play everytime because hey – he’s Mesut fucking Özil !!!
Utter bollocks…..how can you say all players are born equal? Errrr…….. Bergkamp
I rest my case
Bergkamp? His premier league record with Arsenal reads: Played 315, scored 87 and assisted 94 times. That’s 1 assist every 3.4 matches on average, and 1 goal every 3.5 matches. Mesut? For Arsenal in the PL: Played 156, scored 30 and assisted 51 times. That’s a goal every 5 matches, and an assist every 3 matches. Bergkamp was a striker, so no wonder his match-goals ratio is slightly higher (by not much!). Mesut’s match-assist ratio is higher though, and instead of having the likes of Thierry, Pires and Wright for teammates, he had Giroud, Welbeck and Hahazette. So you see,… Read more »
Well said.
Puts it into perspective.
Too many people carrying prejudices unfounded against certain players like Iwobi, Mustafi, Granit…Flamini before.
Are you being serious?
rpsort – Bergkamp and Ozil pretty equal? Because you looked up and compared a couple of stats? You’re clearly very young and didn’t see God play. Sit down, behave yourself and stop blaspheming!
Btw I’m a massive Ozil fan. Seriously. On his day he’s the closest I’ve seen to Bergkamp and it’s beautiful to watch. But kid, you should’ve seen Bergkamp. Pure poetry and majestic artistry, mixing intelligence with elegance as he conducted and composed the play.
The first time i ever saw Arsenal play was when we smashed Everton 7-0 at Highbury in 2005. Bergkamp was sublime! Everything you say Tom Gun about Bergkamp is so true. Such a real creative artist at his profession that was an absolute delight to watch. The premier league was blessed to have him.
Got to love those dirty elbows too!!
One little thing about Bergkamp is, he was massively influential in getting a low-on-confidence winger we signed from Juve called Thierry Henry to blossom into the legend he became. Henry got boatloads of caviar from Dennis, but he also took lots of cues from him like movement, vision and how to control an attacking movement. And how to train with intensity – he said about Dennis “the way that guy used to train was not normal”. Henry won a World Cup playing with Zidane, and a Champions League playing with Messi, and he named DB10 as the greatest he ever… Read more »
That was an impressive response!! 🙂
Jeez Einstein, if Bergkamp played 315 with 191 goals/ assists, thats contributing a goal every 1.7 matches. Bergkamp is God, Bergkamp is life, he was a genius! Özil is like… what, 160 PA? hah, at least i giggled
obviously its 181 (fat finger syndrome), but the ratio is valid 😀
HAHAZETTE!! loll good one
They played in different eras. Looking up stats as simple as goals and assists doesn’t do either player justice
Dude your head is all over the place
U must be truly nuts if you really believe all footballers are born the same with equal talents… Omg, such crap!
I failed to deduce your fact that Petr Cech was born with similar talent with Neymar.
Did his face look like a sad Beagle when he said it, though?
When Ozil was sold to us, some of Real Madrid officials pretended he was sold because he lacked professionalism. Ozil responded he played 159 games for them and you couldn’t do that without being professional (lol for the number of games at Arsenal). They needed to sell one player and theye picked him. None of that matters if you are worldclass on the pitch. Ronaldinho used to play his own avatar to his actual level (tough to achieved) in FIFA all night long, go to nightclub drink and vomit yet perform impressively the following day.
Who were they going to sell if not him
That’s the 2nd team mate to support Ozil playing. Sounds like the team supports him and there is potentially no animosity based on salary and Emery’s treatment of him.
Good to see.
Emery’s treatment of Ozil is speculation.
I don’t understand why people are being so stubborn about this. Sokratis literally backs up what Emery said.
“He was sick, he had some problems but after he came back for training”, implying that yes, Özil has indeed been absent.
“Now he is good”, implying that before, he wasn’t.
It’s about time people invested in demonizing Emery for his “treatment” of Özil accept that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong.
If that’s the argument then this also means that maybe all of those accusing Ozil of pulling a sick note should accept that they’re wrong as well.
I agree with this. I’ve always thought that people doubting that Ozil was actually ill or injured was wrong.
It would be fine if everyone was on the same page from the club but they aren’t. They send mixed signals. That’s were we all speculate and add narratives to fill in the gaps rightfully or wrongfully.
When emery responds to questions about ozil during the long absences it’s not about how he is injured or ill and we really need him or miss what he does for us.
He talks about how he doesn’t train hard enough or tactical against weaker(perceived)opponents, or the club is doing well without him.
that’s all we do is speculate most of the time because guess what? We are on the outside looking in
Emery will be right to be cautious with a back 3 should he elect to do so. Particularly bc our options at Rback are poor at the moment. Lichsteiner may have recovery issues for a match so soon and Jenkinson has limits. But there are no absolutes There is nothing to say he won’t mix it up and switch ftom or to back 4 or back 3. So Ozil has good opportunity in a back 4 to feature or even in a back 3 behind the striker with Iwobi. There is no reason to believe only a back 4 will… Read more »
The more I read about it the more I feel like Ozil suffers from depression.
The more I read about it, the more I feel like both Wenger and Emery have actually tried to protect Özil.
So. The fans want Ozil to play. The players want Ozil to play. Apparently even the manager wants Ozil to play. All that remains is for Ozil to want Ozil to play.
Put the knives away. You don’t know anything about what’s going on.
No I don’t and neither do you and all the fanboys that have been calling for Emery’s head.
I suspect that many who don’t rate Ozil, watch the games solely on TV. I’ve been going over there 50 yrs and he’s one of the best players I’ve ever seen in an Arsenal shirt. The lunacy of some of these comments is exemplified by claims of Iwobi being a better player. The levels of ignorance beggars belief.