Last season Ozil's conversion % was 20% - i.e. elite It's amazing how the bloggers who supposedly know about football continue to talk this crap. For a player demanding £350k a week, Mesut really is a bad finisher. He'll not sleep well tonight.— LE GROVE (@LeGrove) October 14, 2017
In this case jitty is fulfilling the role of the drunk...."Some individuals use statistics as a drunk man uses lamp-posts — for support rather than for illumination." Ozil isn't a good finisher.
Exactly. And that is why he has a good career finishing %, because he only takes on high percentage chances. It is a weakness - but due to the low volume. But narrative
I am going to go back to what i said some weeks ago At arsenal we criticise the only two decent players we have and blame them for not carrying the team But the real issue is there are not enough elite players At City. KDB is currently amazing but look at the support he has A very high level tactical scheme to get him in the half spaces Full backs playing narrow to wipe his bum 2 high quality wingers making great runs A mobile 9 David Silva. It's the same way Pogba got ripped last season - but actually he could not carry a team with numerous issues
It would be great to know if Mesut would be a better more impactful player if Wenger assembled more top-class players around him. But alas, that's just not gonna happen, so I guess we'll never really know. For me, I don't dislike him, I just don't think he wasn't worth the hype or the money we paid. At the end of the day, his various amazing skills just don't translate into anything that makes a big difference to our success. Or at least not consistently. That is why I'm fine with him moving on if that's what both sides want. OTOH if he stays, those two sides should do a better job of figuring out how to increase his value to our playing and our results.
I see it the other way round. In the last 10 years Arsenal has always had a couple of elite players like RvP or Fabregas and a few emerge like Ade or Hleb They are what get the team to 70+ points and top 4 With no elite players the team will plumb the same depths liverpool hit i.e. 60s No other Arse player outside of Giroud has delivered elite data in the past 2 years beyond Ozil and Alexis. The are not the ones holding the team back - they are the only ones delivering.
He's not a good finisher because he can't finish anything other than easy finishes. He doesn't shoot because he knows he can't get the ball in the net. Look at the NBA, nobody would confuse guys with high shooting percentages for good shooters. DeAndre Jordan shot 71% last season and he can't hit a free throw. Ozil is a bad finisher.
I'm going to both agree and disagree with you. The biggest problem with the club is that too many players are not that good. It is also a problem that Ozil is not good enough to be a team's best or second best player. If Ozil is your 5th or 6th best player than you're in good shape, but he is a complementary player and not a building block.
Do you have his top 5 times when he hits it right at the keeper when he's all alone? Do you have the top 5 times he passed up open shots because he can't strike the ball hard? Do you have the top 5 free kicks that were easily saved? 5 highlighs over 122 games. That's enough to convince you that he's a good finisher...
You literally typed he can only score easy goals. I just showed you 5 goals that were not easy. What are you doing?
Only the Bournemouth goal is one that a "good finisher" would be surprised at. Goal 5 was easy and goal 1 was a free kick. The other two were very nice goals. This has split from it's original premise. Ozil isn't a good finisher because he's not a good shooter. Perhaps I overstated the ease of his goals, but nothing you've shown or said is any evidence that he is a good finisher. Here's Ox's top 5 goals.
But you know - i agree. If Arsenal had 5 players better than Ozil it would be an elite team. Even if Santi was pulling the strings in midfield there would be a massive improvement in possession And yes, if Ozil could be traded for one other elite player, you could probably find one who might win you more points - e.g, an elite goal scorer.
I recall when Zonal called out peak Dan Sturridge some years ago for needing 5 chances to score So I asked Ted knutsen about it The only players with better conversion at the time were Ronaldo and Messi 20% conversion is elite. There is no other way to look at it. But that means 80% of his shots are "bad/weak" The problem is Ozil only took 40 shots last season. Here is a comparison with Hazard. Even with Hazard's penalties included (they should be removed) you will see they are remarkably similar. Ozil is indeed slightly better. But he shoots half as much as Hazard and Hazard himself has weak volume.
The whole subject of finishing does raise some fascinating logical fallacies Ted wrote about the "Neville" fallacy He's got to score/He's got to at least test the keeper/get it on target etc when speaking of a shooting position with say 30% xG but it's a weak foot volley under pressure I once read a fascinating piece of mistakes and errors that pointed out that human analysis frequently attaches a qualitative stigma to errors. So if you miss in a heroic way, e.g. you hit the post or the keeper makes a great save that's ok But if you go for a power finish and it skies over the bar - you are a bad person Yet in order not to score - something has to go wrong. And something often does go wrong because its very hard, even for an elite shooter, to control the power delivered. So this means if it does go wrong - it can look bad (Row Z) It's questionable whether the nature of the error really matters A good example is an in form cricketer who smashes a full toss straight at a fielder. It looks a dumb way to get out, and he will be kicking himself, but in order to get out, implies an error The vivid nature of the error doesn't matter. Same with missing a penalty in a shoot out. e.g Schweini, Muller, Ozil vs Italy. Most likely it was random chance. Trouble is sports are so full of ideas about choking and clutch.
I think you are still getting this round the wrong way. He's an elite finisher - but not an elite goal scorer. His shot volume is tiny - more like a typical midfielder. That means he is not getting into shooting positions that often and/or does not take them on. But seeing as he has never been a shot heavy player, it seems a strange thing to complain about. As we saw in the first part of last season, efforts to turn him into a goal score were successful from his point of view - he racked up goals faster than any time in his career - but it wrecked the teams goal output.
How I would judge someone to be a great finisher. Statistically, if he could maintain his goals scored above his xG. To me that means the player possesses the skill of being a good shooter. The second is more subjective, but basically to ask, from a given position or goal-scoring opportunity, what player would you most want to be shooting? I don't think Ozil does that. Right now the three best players at outscoring their xG numbers are Messi, Griezmann, and Kane. I would argue that Messi and Kane are excellent choices to stick in any goal-scoring opportunity. I haven't watched Griezmann enough to comment on his finishing. As I've said before, I think Ozil is a tremendously talented and skilled player whose impact is less than the sum of his parts.
I think the comparison to Hazard is the right one Both have elite conversion, but neither is an elite goal scorer With Ozil the main reason is because he is more a midfielder. He can play as a forward because he is a very high quality player but its a waste basically. But his main role is to assist. Hazard is elite in chance creation and take ons, but his shot volume is surprisingly low. This is in part because he looks instead to create chances for team mates. And in part because he starts further from goal. But other players like say Alexis or Bale shoot far more than him. So we could again criticise his goal scoring, but not his conversion.
I don't think Hazard is a good comparison. Hazard plays in a very different way than Ozil that involves more dribbling and quick movement. Ozil drifts (always to the right place) but doesn't often beat people off the dribble or make runs with or without the ball that move the defense around. Also, Hazard is a better finisher than Ozil. He's outscored his xG in 3 of his 4 seasons with Chelsea. Ozil has done it twice in 4 seasons, but one was 4.9 xG to 5 goals. He's not as good a finisher as you are making him out to be, imo.