It's been interesting that Utd have Pogba derangement syndrome. Every bad result is because pogba is lazy. Yet often he is their only elite performer. I wonder if it is just the natural thing to blame the star players for failure? There are a few guys who specialised in being heroic losers down the years - like Stevie G
We looked at this is quite a bit of detail in the german forum, as the World Cup is one of the few times you get comprehensive sprint data IIRC, in 2014 Ozil had the 2nd highest sprint volume of any german player. He also clocked the top speeds. So as usual this goes far against the idea that he was lazy. So that was the version of Ozil that arrived from Madrid - very high sprint volumes, and pacey. Remember he was often subbed out of games later in Spain. Wenger started changing him a bit, to reduce his sprint volumes. in 2018 Ozil was once again accused of being lazy. He played in a central, deeper role compared to 2014. Interestingly while his sprint stats were down, the stats of the entire team were massively down and he was hardly the worst offender. So his physical wind down may be somewhat overstated IMO. In any event it was noticeable in central midfield he could still operate in tight spaces, find space, and he has enough pace to break away from his marker. These offensive carries are important. But IMO he is no longer an option to play as a wide forward.
Playing 2 up top leaves us a man short somewhere. I'd prefer to cash in lacazette and get a proper winger or wide midfielder
too many miles on the clock. I do agree he could probably retooled but the whole tactical shape doesn't really make any sense.
He probably can be retooled but Arsenal have way too many problems to focus on trying to retool Ozil at this point. Best to cut losses and look to the future.
I don't personally blame him much for the match because as Jitty posted he was given a tactical job that he did effectively but also nullified his strengths as a player. But in the bigger picture, despite mismanagement by Emery, he doesn't have the legs and trying to fit him into a central midfield will be another costly experiment involving putting a lot of shielding players around him.
My take from the Reddit analysis of Ozil vs Chelsea is that Ozil has a very limited role in which he can be an excellent player, and that Arsenal lack the squad (especially on defense) to let him play that role. If Ozil can't do more to take his skills into other facets of the game (a la Hazard) then he's not worth 350k per to Arsenal. Yes, it's an indictment of the club, too, but it's still telling that after this whole season you don't see a raft of pundits and ex-players lining up to put this all on Emery. If Ozil was capable of being The Man he'd find a way to contribute, he'd be a leader on the field, and we'd hear non-stop stories from behind the scenes about how he's working his but off to do whatever it takes to help Arsenal win. Yet I don't recall finding that to be the case. Ozil is a World Cup champ and a fabulous talent, but he's not worth the price for a team that's ill-equipped to get the best out of him at this stage in his career, and there's nothing wrong with that.
This is a fair critique with the significant exception of the "a la Hazard" part. Hazard isn't asked to mark the other squad's playmaker. Plus Hazard had three midfielders sitting behind him, with Kante having nearly the work rate of two midfielders himself. Ozil had Torreira, who's great and Xhaka, whose lack of mobility we're all well aware. That's not a knock on Hazard, who obviously is a fantastic player. I just think the roles their respective managers asked them to fill last week were quite different.
I won't disagree, but I'll add that Hazard's role can vary from match to match. He may not be a great defender but offensively he's productive from a variety of positions, and is able to make average strikers effective with how he forces himself into a match. Ozil hasn't done anything like that in a spell, and his speciality is the pass rather than drawing defenders and changing the shape of the defense. Ozil is older. That's not a knock on him but it means Arsenal needs to adjust based on that fact. And if Ozil can't perform without the same defensive support as Hazard then either Arsenal needs to get that support or move on from Ozil. Given his age and wages which option is more likely?
You’re saying all of this while not acknowledging that Emery forced Ozil to man mark in that match. Sarri didn’t tell Hazard to do that and has never told Hazard to do that. Im not saying Ozil would have put in a performance like Hazard’s but it seems he was never given the chance to.
Ozil is a specific player If u play him In a different way he will not be able to ‘grab the game by the scruff of the collar’ his job is to create If we had 2 mobile and technical 6’ with 2 wingers he would still be effective However, we don’t
Sure, Hazard's role varies, but AFAIK, he's never been asked to man-mark like Ozil was in this match. He's always given more of a free role. And as far as making average strikers effective, that's largely due to the fact that he's what I'll call a dribbler, for lack of a better term. He beats players 1v1 (a la Messi --- no, not saying he's that good) which disrupts defenses, as you note, and opens up better opportunities for other strikers. And although Ozil used to be better at getting past that first defender, being a dribbler has never been his game. He unlocks defenses with passes, as you of course also note. But as a rule, dribblers are always more likely to impose themselves on a match because the very nature of their great skill is quite individualistic, it relies on no one else. A passer has to have great movement from others, otherwise a packed defense has little difficulty defending him. I love Ozil and his style of play (or at least how he previously played), but I think we have to do both, i.e., buy more midfielders (at least one to replace Ramsey) and move on from Ozil. It's just time, unfortunately, especially since Emery looks to be going nowhere for at least another season and he's never really liked playing with a true 10 anyway, IIRC (I'll defer to anyone that can show me has has).
Not entirely what I'm saying because I'm speaking about more than this one match. Ozil had a different charge last week and I acknowldge he did that fairly well. What I'm speaking to is the idea that overall Arsenal is not equipped to maximize his abilities, which have grown limited with age/mentality. So they either retool to better use Ozil in his better role or try to move the German.
The idea of retooling or rebuilding the squad around Ozil at this point is a pipe dream. He was a surprisingly bad investment for Arsenal and it's time to move on. It took some people (myself included) a little time to get on board with Wenger needing to leave, and the club had to swallow buying out the final year of his contract. Ozil's situation is not too dissimilar. People have been gradually warming to the idea of Mesut leaving. Although he has 2 years left on his contract, it seems similarly in the best interest of the club to forfeit some money to induce the separation. He's had plenty of time (years) to prove his importance to our team/results. It's sad that it hasn't worked out but it hasn't. And it's not likely to. The same way that in the end we could all see that Wenger was not going to regain his previous form. Time to move on.
I’m not saying Ozil needs to stay around. I’m not saying he the player he was even last season. My only point is we can’t compare him to Hazard because Sarri put Hazard in a position to have great influence. Emery didn’t and never really has tried.
It’s like you didn’t read a single post but needed to see your words on the screen for some weird validation.
Meh - IMO there are two distinct eras When he arrived in 2013 Arsenal were seriously good. The best prem team in the calendar year in 2013 until we imploded as usual in early 2014 up till 2016 he was still elite - including setting premium league assist record I agree the last couple of seasons have seen seriously decline - coinciding with late phase wumger mistakes as well - like Wumgers idea to reinvent Ozil as a goal scoring forward which wrecked his output. That decline was also linked with the end of Arteta and the injuries to Santi. IMO Ozil much more wasted his peak years on Wumger than we wasted our time on him. But I agree its time to move on - he's 30 in and in clear decline.
This was also the impression I got in the game. At one point in the first half one of the commentators suggested that Ozll should come out wide to exploit the space on the flanks. But it was clear to me that if he did that, he wouldn't be where Emery wanted him to be when Chelsea won possession. This season clearly hasn't been a good one for Ozil, but I don't know whether it is because of the restrictions Emery's defensive tactics impose on him, or if age is catching up with him. We need to remember that in the three seasons leading up to this one, Ozil had 44 assists in league and European Cup play. Even after this season his assists plus goals per game in Premier League play (.52) are higher than Cesc's assists plus goals per game in Premier League play for Arsenal (.50)