Edu thinks Mikel Arteta will pick Mesut Ozil this season but only if the German delivers in training.
Having enjoyed a solid run of games under the Spaniard at the turn of the year, the World Cup winner hasn’t played competitively since March and wasn’t even in the country when his teammates secured the FA Cup at Wembley last month.
In an interview with The Athletic (£), he’s since hinted that his decision not to take a voluntary pay cut – something the rest of his teammates accepted as the financial implication of Covid-19 took a toll – played a part in him being sidelined.
Initially, Arteta cited Ozil’s struggles with a back problem for leaving him out of squads but as the absence continued definitive answers were hard to come by.
Looking to tackle the subject head-on before the start of the new season, Edu told press:
“Here, we are talking of course about performance. Players with performance in training, the game, they are going to have opportunities because Mikel already showed that. It is for everyone.
“We know how important everybody is. I know how important and big the player is when you mention Mesut but in the end we are talking about performance here.
“If he is performing well, people are performing well, who is the best in the training, the best in the game, I’m sure Mikel is going to select them to be in the squads to play games or to be on the bench.”
Ozil has made it very clear that picked or not, he won’t be leaving Arsenal until his contract runs out next summer. He did feature in a behind-closed-doors friendly this week and has been training regularly.
On the eve of a new season, the big question is whether he’ll go out with a bang or a whimper.
I’m a neutral in the Mesut debate, but it would be very jokes/welcome if he provided some assists/goals in his final season
Love him or hate him man had a few amazing seasons for us and played a huge part in breaking our trophy droughts.
Would be good for all involved if he bows out after a good season and winning the League and Europa league.
That isn’t too much to ask.
not to hate but amazing might be pushing it
At Amusa we’ll said they forgot what ozil did only now talking about kids who performed well at training like willock what do they do on the pitch Edu is talking rubbish – ozil still created more chances than anyone in that team –
Are you thick ?
Willock is specifically used to close out games.
Do you seriously think Mesut Ozil can perform that role ?
Technically Mesut Ozil is a better player than David Luiz yeah let’s play him in CB position too.
You’re talking ancient history. Rome was once a great empire.
He should get in the trench then and get his hands dirty.
We have to hope Ozil will be motivated to Deliver the performances that will earn a big contract at his next club. If he doesn’t play, he won’t get paid very much to sell a few shirts at his next/last stop in professional football.
Yes, whatever you say…
Seems an effective attempt to pre-empt the inevitable press conference questions. Am I imaging it or is Edu starting to put his head above the parapet now Don Raul has gone?
Imagining, not imaging. ?
It is good he is back in the fold and his ordeal is nearly over with Arsenal. He never recovered from the national team game slump and it would be nice to see him try to get his mojo back. Our team has always tended to be over-reliant on a single player over the years,and I hope the big Auba contract does not make him a scapegoat when the whole team stop trying and wait for him to score the solitary goal. I see this trend worrying.
Must be quite the ordeal to get paid 350k per week. So much so that he’s committed to a final year of it. I would love to be wrong, but I think he’ll fade like the smell of a bad fart and disappear from view long before the season ends, prior to a formal retirement gig in the US/ middle east
I genuinely like the tact Arteta/Edu are taking of having to earn your spot vs. being handed it based on reputation. That said the Ozil stuff is just boring at this point. As Stillman pointed out, if he doesn’t have a great season he’ll primarily be remembered for what a trainwreck the new contract was.
Good points but personally I won’t remember Ozil that way.
I’ll remember the assists, goals and amazing skill.
Whilst I respect Tim Stillman, he doesn’t speak for every Arsenal supporter.
I shall remember Mesut Ozil for his attacking play, his skill, his vision, his passing, his assists, his goals – and the contributions he made towards this club ending a nine year trophy drought with three FA Cups in four seasons.
And that’s regardless of what happens between now and next May.
I’ll remember the buzz we all as a fan base when Arsene pulled off the Ozil signing at the last minute while Bale went the other way leaving spurs in headlights while they processed the gazumping that went on.
I’ll remember the assists and the goals, the audacious link up play between him, Giroud, Sanchez and Theo.
I’ll remember his trademark celebration.
I’ll remember how the friendship blossomed between him and Flamini.
So while I respect Tim, he doesn’t speak for me.
For a lot of fans his time at Arsenal will ultimately be remembered as disappointing. He had some great moments but also was very inconsistent and rarely showed up when it counted. He was supposed to signal the era of Arsenal competing at the top was back but instead it became an era of fairly steady and significant decline (not entirely his fault). So while many will have good memories of the things you mentioned, Ozil won’t be regarded in the same way by the overall fanbase as players such as Henry, Cesc, Berkamp are despite arguably being in the… Read more »
When Ozil joined a team that was going nowhere fast became a good cup side – and we duly won the FA Cup three times in four seasons. Alongside Alexis, Santi, Wilshere, Rosicky, Ramsey and Arteta himself, Ozil was able to create many assists and take part in some of the best free-flowing football the Premiership has ever seen. As I have said before on this site, the main reason this club couldn’t go on to the next stage was because of the defence, particularly the centre halves. For all the great goals that have been scored in the past… Read more »
Would love to see this guy turn around all the negatives put his way but can’t see it, lacklustered in many games hissy fits taken off, if Miki can get ozil to be a player we all want him to be then he deserves Manager of the Year.
Will this deter the Özilites from piping up as though he was the 2nd coming of the Prophet himself?
Will it, balls!!
Likewise, will it prevent the hate mob from coming out with the same tired old rhetoric about laziness, loss of form, a waste of money, glad to see the back of him, blah blah fucking blah – without a single one of them able to name a better replacement that this club would genuinely go in to the market for.
Will it balls.
Willian.
That’s why they signed him, yes? In case the Post-Wenger Özil Experiment 4.0 goes tits up again?
Oh, do us a favour mate. Willian isn’t fit to lace Ozil’s boots.
There’s a very good reason Chelsea no longer want him. He’s over the hill and finished.
And I’ll tell you something. If, after he recovers from injury, Mustafi is let anywhere near the pitch, then the Post Emery Willian Experiment 1.0 will go tits up – with ease.
Not sure if I would trust Edu wholly on this one.
I think you can trust it if you read what he said very carefully–that Arteta will pick Ozil in the future depending on his performance/training. That’s the same “blank slate” language Arteta himself has used. Edu has said nothing about why Ozil never played after the restart, and that remains a mystery, at least to me. If, in fact, Ozil starts playing regularly in the new season, it will only deepen the mystery about the actual cause of his non-selection in the restart period.
Performance and formation might explain why he wasn’t starting. But it doesn’t explain why he wasn’t even on the bench, when he been dropped.
Not buying this, it can’t be that simple.
I agree that the whole Ozil affair is now truly boring. But the once great assist master is finished and has been finished for a while now. No club in their right mind would be interested in him so we just have to bite the bullet until his contract is up.
https://youtu.be/ZHxFXQ3zQ0M
could part of the reason of him not being picked be financial ? he must have meaty appearance , goal , win etc bonuses in his contract. could be a consideration , given the financial state of affairs post lock down.
Could be, but if the coach thought that Özil would provide a goal and 2 assists in every game, he would surely select him regardless of any bonuses connected to that, cause it would actually help us massively to win trophies or reach the CL and as a consequence help us to earn much more than we spend on such Özil bonuses. I think that the coach assumes that Özil will provide neither of that but rather a not very convincing performance. In such case a heavy appearance fee might be a deciding factor to not play him or select… Read more »
Surely the biggest “non-story” of the year so far. Nobody appears to be interested (in any serious way anyway) about taking him. I wonder why? Could it be the huge gulf between his general level of performance – when he actually played in “real” games of course, not just friendlies – and his reported £18.5 million a year pay packet?
Bar the salary, there’s not many clubs – City, Liverpool – possibly Chelsea – who wouldn’t have him in their starting XI.
Apart from us, of course…..
Are you serious? No top club in Europe plays a non goal scoring number 10 with no defensive responsibilities anymore. Even if he didn’t appear finished at the top he wouldn’t fit into virtually any top team formation wise anyways
So you’re trying to tell me that Messi, Neymar, Auguero and Mane have been told by their respective coaches to quit the free-flowing stuff and concentrate their efforts on tracking back and fucking around in their own defence…? ?
Mate, you seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.
And if anyone has been able to track back, fetch, carry and then create, then it’s Mesut Ozil.
https://youtu.be/ZHxFXQ3zQ0M
Do you think he suffers from mental illness at all? He seems like a very introspective human being, distant almost, which isn’t necessarily to say that means mental illness but he strikes me as someone who has big internal battles and I wonder if he’s just lost his motivation due to depression. Seems to me that this all started when he left his National team and some of his team mates threw him under the buss. Just a thought
not a bad shout. certainly something that doesn’t get considered when talking about him. its an intensely private thing that would be kept under wraps. what ever it is , i hope it get resolved , for everyone’s sake.
You’re not wrong Roof_attack, I’ve very rarely, if ever, heard of players openly discussing mental illness – something that affects a lot of people. He’s got that, carry the world on his shoulders look, who knows though. As you say, let’s hope a solution is found.
Many highly talented people throughout history have suffered from depression – which in turn led to many of them being misunderstood.
Van Gogh, Beethoven, Oscar Wilde, Chaplin, Lennon, Best – the list is endless.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Ozil suffers from depression. No amount of money or fame or talent can compensate for it – it is a highly debilitating illness – often met with ignorance.
I think we have forgotten the extraordinary stress on Ozil in the period after the last World Cup, far beyond normal football-related issues. He seems to have felt (correctly, in my view, but that’s not really important) that a large section of the German football establishment, and of German fans, were questioning his whole identity, that as a German Muslim, or as a German whose family came from Turkey, he wasn’t a “real German”–at least not when the team lost.
Remember when he all of a sudden found himself in the starting lineup at Anfield after he’d been left out for ages. In the 5-5 draw. The whole thing had a taste of setting him up to fail spectacularly. And he was the best player on the pitch, pulling off touches of genius and displaying quality in his decision making. We went out on penalties, so it’s normal to pretend that Özil performance never happened.
Top post, well said.
Ozil was brilliant that night. In fact, that game was Arsenal in an absolute nutshell, because, for all of Ozil’s brilliance, at the other end of the pitch, it took Mustafi a mere 6 minutes to put through his own net.
Pre-match, I had said that, as usual, Mustafi was going to Mustafi – and people were still defending him on this page when the own goal happened.
Hopefully Ozil can play a part in the side this season and Mustafi will be packed off to the nearest pub side ASAP.
On the topic of Ozil, I wanted to get people’s opinions on something we here were discussing last weekend: We have Ozil on £350/week, one season left on his contract. Madrid has Bale on let’s say 600 Euro/week so let’s say £550/week, two seasons left on his contract. Neither team got much value from them last season, and likely won’t this year. Unlikely that either can get sold due to those wages, so the two clubs will pay £350k and £550 respectively no matter what. I suspect that each player could do with a change of scenery. What if Edu… Read more »
I doubt Bale would join us due to the connection with Spurs.
I’m also not sure I would want Bale anywhere near the team. I don’t like his overall demeanor or attitude.
Bale….?!! ?
Fuck that shit. He’s even more washed up and over the hill than Willian.
I’ve been very critical of him the last few seasons, and rightly so. But there’s still a small, rather naive part of me that thinks Ozil will want to put on a real show in his last season at the club, if only to put himself in the shop window.
Andrew, I think the headline is incorrect. If you read Edu’s statement carefully, he is saying that Arteta will pick Ozil in the coming season, depending on his performances and his training. He says nothing about why Ozil was not picked up until now; I don’t think that is an accident. No one at Arsenal has ever publicly stated why he was not chosen (other than the “back injury”).
I agree. Well said.
I don’t understand how anyone can look at this Arsenal team and say Ozil can’t can’t start or make the bench. I wholly trust and believe in Arteta but damn.
Ozil needs to show up for the sake of the fans who’ll still bat for him.
Mate, there’s no accounting for the depths of ignorance that people will stoop to.
Players like Mesut Ozil are a rarity.
People seem to think Willian and Joe Willock are going to be the answer – no disrespect to either player, but it’s ridiculous.
Personally I can’t wait for Ozil to leave, money grabbing selfish (didn’t want to take the paycut despite his sickeningly high wages) git
He actually offered to take a bigger pay cut than was originally being asked. What he wanted were assurances about where the savings were going and how the would be implemented. He didn’t get a satisfactory answer from the club’s hierarchy, so he refused to take the pay cut – which, by the way, he was legally entitled to do. The hierarchy then, quite childishly, instructed Arteta not to select him. And they also then went and made 50+ members of the club’s staff jobless – lying to Arteta and the players in the process. So Ozil’s decision to question… Read more »
This Ozil saga sticks out like a sore thumb.
Largely because our midfield, without Ozil, has been an absolute joke.
Brighton, Tottenham, Leicester, Villa. One point from a possible twelve. It took Hector Bellerin to roll up his sleeves and make the run for our winner in the Cup Final.
The gamw has modernized and moved forward. Out went tiki taka and in came gegenpress. Players adapted. Even creative players worked their shit off (kdb, david silva etc). Ozil meanwhile has lost motivation/interest after signing the new 350k contract, and doesnt adapt his game to work hard.
Ozil’s game has never been about ‘working hard’, running around like a tit in a trance. It’s been about vision, seeing things that the opposition midfield and defence can only realise after its too late and the pass has been made.
https://youtu.be/ZHxFXQ3zQ0M