Imagine sitting in your office at work, you are grafting hard trying to hit all your targets for the month, while your colleague sits back, feet up on the desk, playing Sporcle quizzes and wafting the smell of his quavers across the room. As well as the small caveat of making five times more money than you. Mesut Ozil is that colleague.
When news broke that Mesut Ozil would not be in Arsenal’s Europa League squad to face BATE Borisov on Thursday, imagine how his teammates must have been feeling. Ozil is on 350 THOUSAND POUNDS A WEEK, and has started less than half of the Gunners’ Premier League games this season: and just three in Europe.
It must get to a point where the players begin to question their own commitment when one of the players clearly aren’t pulling their weight: for one reason or another.
Whose fault that is, is a more complicated matter. Unai Emery made it clear from the outset that no player is bigger than the club. And Ozil, clearly, doesn’t fit the manager’s footballing ideals. How the German has reacted to that, is the unknown quantity. Given his lackadaisical style, it’s unlikely Ozil is the kind of player that will stay and fight for his place.
And before you abuse Ozil, ask yourself: if you were getting paid that amount of money to do NOTHING, would you?
The way the club have handled the situation is where the fault lies. Firstly, why Ozil would even have been given that contract – worth around £90 million – is obscene. Ultimately, the main reason was the club couldn’t afford to lose both Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil in the same window, which would’ve been a PR disaster. That, in itself, is a parody the ‘banter club’ brigade on Twitter must’ve been frothing at the mouth over. When tempers were already flaring – and the Arsene Wenger out campaign were getting their A4 laminated sheets of paper out – Arsenal losing their ‘marquee’ star, would’ve tipped some over the edge.
What that decision has actually done is screw new Arsenal boss Unai Emery, who finds himself in the impossible situation of picking up Ivan Gazidis, and to some extent Arsene Wenger’s mess.
It’s quite clear Emery wants to banish Ozil to the Under-23s and be done with it, but his stubbornness is getting the best of him.
Not many can reasonably say that Mesut Ozil wouldn’t improve the creativity of this Arsenal side, who of late have been relying on Sead Kolasinac for attacking output. In a midfield that is devoid of any creativity, you have one of the most lauded visionaries of the last decade rotting on the subs bench.
We all know Ozil wants to leave, and reports surfacing this week indicate the club are offering out the midfielder to potential suitors. But until that moment comes where Ozil departs, utilise him!
It’s not been a very good week for Arsenal. BBC’s chief sports writer and Arsenal ITK David Ornstein revealed details of Aaron Ramsey’s 400k-a-week new deal at Juventus, which had some fans demanding that the Welshman never appear in an Arsenal shirt again. Those whispers were then silenced as quickly as they surfaced as the ‘Ornacle’ shared that Ramsey had ‘no intentions’ of signing a new deal at the Emirates, taking the blame away from the club once again.
Wonder how the rumours of Unai Emery being given a £50 million budget in the summer will go down if proved to be true.
