Mesut Ozil has backed Unai Emery, saying the Spaniard has improved Arsenal during his first season in charge, as well as suggesting that he could have the same impact on the Gunners as Jurgen Klopp has had at Liverpool.
The relationship between the club’s biggest star and the new head coach hasn’t always been easy but the German insists their relationship is good and seems enthused by the impact the former PSG and Sevilla man has had.
Speaking after a week in which Arsenal have lost three consecutive games and in all probability blown their chances of securing a top four finish, Ozil says that Emery’s influence has been positive.
“I think he is doing really good work. When you look at the team, you can see that we have developed,” he told the Evening Standard.
“For a new coach, in a new country and at a new club where it’s perhaps a different culture than you are used to, you have to let those things develop. But he is definitely in a good way.
“He brings us forward and I hope he will continue to get better in the coming years. It’s like with Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool – over time he has been able to make them successful gradually, and hopefully Unai Emery can do the same.”
The aim of what remains this season is to get Champions League football again, something Ozil was keen to stress the importance of.
“We need to be playing Champions League football,” he said.
“The Europa League is another competition and it’s nice to play in but we want to test ourselves against the best and to do that we need to be playing in the Champions League.”
Ozil is expected to return to the starting line-up this evening having missed the trip to Leicester with a foot injury.
I hope he can have the Klopp impact but it will take us several seasons to find out and even then only if he is allowed the ability to recruit quality players like Liverpool have done.
There is only so much a manager can do. If players don’t give a shit, and play like weak wankers then we have no hope. I hate troy deneey, but he has a point, some games we play like we have no balls.
Player of the year titles don’t count as Trophies.
Ffs please no. Last thing I want is a cheerleader that wins nothing. I’d rather he be our Pep Guardiola.
The people who’ve ‘allowed’ LFC to spend are Fenway Group (John Henry and Tom Werner) … they’re so good at what they do they dragged the Red Sox to four World Series wins since they took over (infinitely harder than you think).
We, on the other hand, have a bunch of Colonel Blimps and and some bloke in a toupee who’s business plan is expressly built on not spending money. Duh?
The only way we’re likely to break into the very top flight is if we sacked our board and sold the club to someone who actually cares.
I’m hoping for a Nigerian prince to come and save us
Curiously, I had an email earlier this morning…
Hey, the life and death of colonel blimp is a bloody brilliant film! I wish we had a colonel blimp not a stingy yank
Agree. John W Henry has done a marvellous job bringing glory back to Liverpool. Of course, they haven’t won a major yet but they are way better than 10 years ago.
There are rumours that Qatar Inc. are leaving PSG. Could someone tell them that there is a North London FC which needs to be saved from greedy hands?
And you need to be our Salah
Doesn’t have the talent.
Totally agree, Ozil has become like Fernando Torres, a has-been. End of season is coming so he is trying to please the manager to keep him for next season. I really hope he makes me wrong today.
More like our Coutinho or Suarez, get sold so we spend the money better
Which means on hindsight we should have sold sanchez and ozil 1 year before their contracts expired and reinvest the cash/ renew ramsay
Losing with three goals against sounds similar….
But more seriously, high praise from Mesut. Hope we can turn round the recent rubbish form and get back to winning ways this evening and for the rest of the season.
LMAO!! This pictures mad eye cry. Well let’s hope he can emulate Klopp success. I doubt it but I’m begging to be proven wrong. I believe the next hottest manager after Klopp is Jardim. He has the charisma and commands respect. However I’m just not ready to throw my toys out of the pram yet. COYG
Klopp hasn’t won anything (yet) Can’t we emulate someone who wins stuff instead?
At least he qualifies for the CL easily!
And compete for the title.
Only competed for the title this year.
Which is something we should all keep in mind with our new coach. Pep and Mou have only done things faster because they had teams that were already stronger and then outspent everyone 2:1.
Klopp took over Liverpool in Oct 2015 he finished 8th in his first season and then 4th and 4th so hardly easily qualifying is it.
Bundesliga domestic double and 2 cl finals. If you asked any arsenal fan if they wanted a league + cup double and 2 cl finals in any given decade they wouldn’t say no. Klopp may be a toothy man clown but he’s still one of the best managers around at the moment.
Didn’t Unai win a domestic treble with PSG? And has won the Europa league 3 times.
In the last decade too 🙂
Also Arsenal fans had a manager that delivered 2 doubles and numerous FA cups and leagues and a CL final and they wanted rid of him!! 🙂
Regardless of that the op was about how klopp hasn’t won anything and my response was to that. Wenger and unia were and are great managers
So is klopp, where’s the lie in my previous post.
Ozil needs to be given a free along with Mkhitaryan, I just don’t see the value in waiting 2yrs to move this team forward. Salah, Mane, Firminho, are the best three forwards as a combination in the country, but if you started rotating them with Ozil/ Mkhitaryan then the whole team structure would fall apart. They don’t have the physicality to be consistent in the PL, they might be our best current options, but that says more about their alternatives than it does about them. This squad needs huge surgery, and i’d rather use our resources on two less talented… Read more »
Two of our most sellable assets and you want to give them away for free?? How do we rebuild by giving away our players?
Easily…. They’re not sellable, neither are going to take a pay cut to leave. Neither are going to have their contracts renewed in 2years time, keeping them… is just sitting around waiting for their contracts to expire so we can move on in 24 months, why wait? It’s highly unlikely someone else would be willing to pay Mkhitaryan £170,000 p/w for the next 2years (£17,680,000) , and pay us any any type of fee, he’ll be 32 and won’t hold any type of value. Very few clubs can afford that type of money, and the ones that can… certainly wouldn’t… Read more »
I reckon Rich has a calculator.
Should have given it Arsene Wenger last year.
How does selling miki and Ozil for free save 122200000 in 5 yrs if their contract will run out in 2 yrs.
So looking at these 2 yrs, we will be paying them 48.88m. Its impossible to find a replacement for a quality AM (transfer fee plus 2 yrs of salary) in today’s market, let alone 2. So I dont see what good deal it can bee.
Drew – to be fair, neither Ozil nor Mkhi are sellable assets, because their wages are so high no-one will take them on (unless there is little or no transfer fee). They both have two years left on their contracts. We’ll pay them a combined total of £55 million over those two years, at which point they will both be 32 and will probably leave on frees. If we let them both go now, we could reinvest that amount on a younger player on a lower salary who actually would be a sellable asset, and who might fit better with… Read more »
Thats the difference. Salah and mane are 2 inside forwards who cut in and give you goals while firminho plays as a deep lying striker, whereas we have a traditional 2 providers providing for 1 striker system in our 532. Thats why we needed ram to come from deep to score and disorganize defences for this system to work
I wanted to write something “clever” but then I saw the photoshop.
That’s my quote:
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
As much as i want CL, im petrified of it. Watching Messi vs liverpool gave me the shakes and i had flashbacks to all the thrashings we used to get vs Bayern.
In my opinion we are nowhere near ready for the CL.
I said this to someone the other day. I think any potential we had in teams over the last 10 years or so was completely beaten out of them by the pastings in the CL. I have no issue with staying in the EL for a season or two more and getting this squad into shape before stepping up. I don’t think the whole ‘drifting into the wilderness’ thing is as much of a problem now given our infrastructure, fan base and- ultimately- massive fucking Sky payouts. Dare I say, I’ve enjoyed going to the games in the latter stages… Read more »
But we need the cash and the players that the CL brings though.
Yes. That’s what it’s ALL about right now!
As much as some may grumble, it in fact is. If we’re not getting money and players from Stan where we are, we need that draw and bucket of cash. It’s kind of moot in a way to complain about getting into the Champion’s League but not getting to the final given our current place in the league. That money and those players will put us in the top 4, then we keep building, then we compete. The pollution of football by the Man Cities, PSG’s and Chelskis has eroded the brains of many football supporters into thinking it has… Read more »
Yeah I get that, but people talk about this as though we’re suddenly going to become cash rich from getting into the CL group stage. As far as I remember, it’s about £30m or so right for getting in the CL? That really doesn’t get you much these days. One good, raw prospect, a la Torreira. Realistically we’re not shopping from the upper echelons of the market with or without CL.
(and I appreciate it’s much more of a draw coming to a CL club, and I would like to be there too. Just think if we do miss out it may be good longer term. We’ll never know either way I guess!)
Yes, and I think we have a large enough total wage bill for us to build a better team than we have now.
With or without the extra CL cash, we’ll have to be smart about buying and selling. Extra cash would be a great help but we’re not in an existential crisis.
Ajax are losing two of their best young talents this summer and fans and coach are pretty cool with it, because they know how to develop talent. Our club needs more of that self-confidence, and less of this desperation about CL qualification.
30m for getting in the CL mjc………but the rewards for going far in it are huge. For winning a quarter final this year Liverpool & the Totts made over 8m each. Didn’t I read Liverpool’s run to the final last year brought in over 80m in total ? We may be miles off winning it but even getting out of the group stages of the CL is worth far more (financially at least) than winning the European outright
“But he is definitely in a good way.” Adopting the boss’s lingo as well I see.
Lol, you noticed that too.
Helps when your owners sanction spending £75m on a centre back, £60m on a keeper and £90m on two central midfielders in the space of six months.
That is very true and also helps when the club sell top players for decent fees especially Coutinho, re-invest the money in the team and not let them go for nowt, ala Rambo….!!
Great point
Jurgen Klopp could have been our Jurgen Klopp.
But in all seriousness, I think Unai has all the right tools to pull off turning this club around. There were already some decent signs this season with mainly Arsene’s players. Let’s see what he can do with more of his own guys and a year under his belt next season!
In the meantime, win the Europa!
It’s true, take back to when we played Dortmund and wished klopp would join then, we would have been ahead of everyone in having a good squad and competing for title/CL. But Wenger didn’t let go of his throne until it was forced out of his hands.
Does he have all the right tools though, namely significant transfer funds? He certainly didn’t have that in January!
Ozil always talk the talk…with the walk part , well, it’s another story.
Go Gunners…. I know you guys suck with pressure lately but you can redeem yourselves by winning UEL Cup no pressure 🙂
Really show how important charisma is for a manager. Klopp could win fuck all this season (again) while emery winning the europa and getting to top 4 and people would still wank how good klopp is, how much passun he got etc etc.
Klopp could win fuck all and still end up with 97 points this season, nothing to be sniffed at tbf to him.
Apart from the comparisons (Emery – Klopp) I would say just one thing. Is it the same feeling when you see Arsenal play and Liverpool play? In the past years Arsenal created a general emotion of fear when the game starts. At the other hand watching Liverpool play in recent (Klopp) years it’s a way way different feeling. Yesterday the played assured against Barcelona. They were powerful, dynamic, but they didn’t win. A Liverpool fan can easily say: yes we lost but we played damn well. If we were playing Barca I am pretty much assured that most of us… Read more »
“we want to test ourselves against the best”
We don’t need CL football for that, Mesut.
We’ve already beaten some of the best teams in Belarus, Azerbaijan AND Ukraine this season. Not to mention the 11th best team in France.
Smaller clubs below us (Wolves, Leicester, Man Utd) would kill for that kind of success.
Liverpool sold their best CM for over £100m and reinvested it into an elite CB, GK and all-round squad improvements. Meanwhile we’re letting Ramsey leave for nothing at all! I’m all for Emery emulating Klopp but it’s not just up to him, the board need to seriously back him in the market as well.
“but we want to test ourselves against the best and to do that we need to be playing in the Champions League”
Mate we cant past the test provided by palace, wolves or Leicester. in fact, we failed miserably
That was a freaky image! Ha.
Well, let’s be honest: Klopp hasn’t won dick. How about “our Pep”.
I certainly didn’t see this one coming…
Unai can be his own man. He doesn’t have to emulate Klopp. In any case I find the German hugely irritating All those unnecessary antics on the sideline, just seems really artificial. Hope Barca do another number on them in the return leg. Unai has made some mistakes but he is feeling out the limits of the squad first season. I think the big mistake recently is going to a back 4 which was not necessary IMO as we had enough Cbacks to cover back 3. Perhaps he was worried about durability of squad in the run in which was… Read more »
Emery needs to get an IELTS to be another Klopp! You know, He still calls mustafi a defender and backs him. J’accuse! It’s gramatically wrong.
I have enduring faith in mesut but his performances of late have been lethargic and his guile going forward seems have faded.
His statement of loyalty today was good to hear. But if mesut is standing up as our top man we need to see real commitment now, not just two outstanding displays a season.
I rather he be our pep please