UEFA has officially published the 25 man squad for both Europa League and Champions League this week. Arsenal, participating in the former, have had some dilemma in selecting their players, and their decision has been a controversial one.
The summer transfer window was disappointing in terms of outgoings, with the club still having 8 center backs in their senior squad. This resulted in the Gunners having 19 non-homegrown players, exceeding the maximum limit of 17. This meant that 2 of the 19 was meant to be omitted. There were several reports which said that the sacrificial lambs would be Sokratis and the club’s big earner Mesut Ozil, which turned out to be true when UEFA published the 25 man squad for Arsenal. Another noticeable omission was new signing William Saliba, who is now rumored to be loaned out to a Championship team (potentially Brentford or Watford), but it did not have the impact as that of the omission of the German Playmaker.
It was common knowledge that Sokratis was never a part of Mikel Arteta’s plan and the club tried its best to offload the Greek International. However, the pandemic-struck transfer window limited a lot of clubs from spending luxurious amounts of money on transfer fees and weekly wages, which resulted in no concrete offer coming in for Sokratis. He did not feature for more than 10minutes combined in all competitions post-lockdown and was never expected to feature in any games this season either.
Here comes the controversial part of the omission, Mesut Ozil. Earning a whopping 350,000 per week, the German playmaker is considered to be amongst the best in the positions on his day. From being a world-class Central attacking midfielder who walks into almost every football team in the World, to not even being eligible in the 25-man squad for the Europa League, his legacy has indeed been downhill in the recent years.
Mesut joined the Gunners in 2013, which was honestly an unexpected signing when a word class player in a successful Real Madrid team, move to an English team, who had not been much successful at the time. He made an instant impact on the team, aiding in Arsenal’s first bit of silverware in around 9 years, and a successive FA cup in the following year.
He was undoubtedly Arsene Wenger’s favorite in the squad, which was also mentioned by then-teammate Aaron Ramsey quoting him to be the “teacher’s pet” of the squad. Ozil was never the type of player who would work their socks off in tracking back opponents, nor pressing hard to get possession, and so was Arsene Wenger’s team at the moment, which enabled him to flourish in that system.
Ever since the veteran Frenchman’s departure from the club in 2018, Ozil’s place in the squad was not the same as before and was dropped a fair few times during the period of Unai Emery. He demanded a lot from his squad in terms of physicality and aggressiveness which was never considered to be a strong trait of Ozil. Ozil was visibly annoyed by certain omissions, having to miss crucial fixtures like The North London derby and other games. Even when deployed, he did look out of sorts in the team and did not exactly have the same impact as he did under Wenger.
But this was not noticed much by the Arsenal faithful, who blamed Unai Emery completely for the omission of Mesut Ozil and was questioning the future of the Spaniard manager as soon as when Arsenal lost in the Europa League Final in a 4-1 trashing to London rivals Chelsea. Unai Emery later parted ways with the Gunners in the middle of the 2019-20 season, and everyone expected Mesut Ozil to be back with the squad starting week-in week-out, which should be the case considering the fact that Ozil is the highest earner in the squad.
Enter Freddie Ljungberg, the interim coach who was highly expected to re-integrate Mesut back into the starting 11 . Ozil did feature in Freddie’s brief tenure as interim coach, but never delivered in those games and was often substituted early in the second half. Arsenal fans were genuinely worried about the German’s form, which led to the likes of Hale end graduates Joe Willock and Emil Smith Rowe get the nod above him in certain games.
Mikel Arteta was soon later appointed to be the head coach of Arsenal, who had a mammoth of a task in front of him. He had to change the mentality of the club, which reeked negativity whilst handling big-name stars like Ozil, Aubameyang, and Lacazette. Arsenal fans were genuinely optimistic that Arteta was the man to renovate Ozil’s falling reputation and he did a fairly decent job in that.
In Arteta’s first 3 months in charge, Ozil did feature in almost every game he’s expected too, but still, there was this lack of contribution off the ball which annoyed Arteta at certain games. It was like a trend that Ozil is to be substituted at the 65th minute for another midfielder and the German’s reaction towards them did not help his case either. His stats were poor, contributing directly only to 3 goals in his 18 appearances pre-lockdown.
Fast forward to June, when football resumed after the pandemic had hit, Ozil has failed to feature for even a single minute in competitive football, which the fans had taken it as the end of his Arsenal legacy. Even other fringe players like Sokratis had very brief playing time than Mesut Ozil, making it a fairly bold statement from club manager Mikel Arteta, the man who was most expected to bring back Mesut Ozil in his prime.
Ozil has rejected all sorts of offers from clubs from Turkey, Saudi, and wants to fulfill his Arsenal contract. He has failed to make in any of the matchday squads in the 20/21 season, even after publicly stating in social media that he’s fit and available to play(when he featured in a friendly).
There has to be more than footballing reasons for Mikel Arteta and co to leave the German playmaker off the squad when the club’s primary weakness currently is creativity, which the German is destined for. Many rumors state that Ozil’s wages are considerably low when not featuring in matchday squads and Arsenal are omitting him on purpose, considering the financial struggles of the club. His attitude and recent performances also have not helped him.
It has indeed been downhill in career for the player, who is supposed to be the star of the team but is rather preferred to leave the club. Controversies did exist during his Arsenal career, but Mesut Ozil is undeniably amongst the best players to play for Arsenal in the Emirates Era. Hope we get to see one last dance of him (highly unlikely, but we Arsenal fans are always the best when it comes to hope :p )
#COYG
