Emery was asked in his pre-match interview whether Ozil and Kola were doing OK, and his answer was very nervous I thought. He said the usual "I only want to discuss match issues right now" but he had this weird expression of dread/concern. It made me wonder if they're not OK, or if there's some controversy i.e. they're re embroiled in some illegal activities of some sort... not just purely the victims of a near mugging/carjacking? Hopefully the club will issue some sort of a clarifying statement.
Article in the Athletic about the Ozil/Kola situation Initially it seemed liked an unlucky circumstance that Ozil was mugged since he was driving after having bought an expensive watch The attack took place right outside of Kolasinac's home Although Ozil and Kolasinac made social media posts to calm any concerns about them, things still weren't right at home. New threats were made and people were arrested outside of Ozil's house After the attack, Kolasinac sent his wife and dogs back to Germany. Ozil beefed up security at his home and stayed elsewhere accompanied by bodyguards During the Newcastle match, not only did they not make the trip, they were far away from London Both have returned to London Colney this week to restart training, but Arsenal will still give them all the space they need For Ozil, London was a safe haven of some sort after all the socio-political backlash in Germany. Even his boyhood neighborhood didn't feel the same It is a major challenge for both to move on from a situation that is still largely unresolved It would not be entirely unexpected if they were to seek a move to start fresh
It seems silly that all we want as fans is for our team to have the talent and depth that we expect, except that our talent and depth somehow have bigger problems unrelated to football. Like gangs wanting to kill them. 2019 is a b*tch
Ah Amy. She's a sweetheart. I dunno, but her last article appears to have been on July 12. I'm hearing that a lot of people have recently been recruited by The Athletic. Minus a few notables like Andrew Mangin, but "capturing" his sidekick James McNicholas. For the time being, there's still enough decent content that's free, so I'm not subscribing to paywall publications like The Athletic any time real soon. There's a similar shift going on with podcast audio content. Probably not long from now we will look back on the late teens as a glorious time for free content.
They seem to have this business strategy of hiring a critical mass of journalists, so as to "force" people to buy their product if they still want to read their favorite journos. Will be interesting. Both Andrew Mangin & James Richardson had slightly snide comments about The Athletic in the last week, about them "hoovering up everyone".
I support Journo's getting paid, and subscriptions is the only way to fund it now that Facebook and Google are thieving all the ad revenue from content producers. There is obviously a bit of jealousy from those who didn't get jobs - apparently they are being paid quite well
This is quite decent It is interesting that the arsenal has got worse in all key metrics since ozil stopped being the key guy for us Yet supposedly he was a big defensive issue Paul Pogba has come under heavy criticism in his Premier League career because of Manchester United’s woes.Like Mesut Özil before him, Pogba has suffered from the idea that a single player can be responsible for an entire team's misfortunes. @Reunewal: https://t.co/wYeeVgm6NA— Breaking The Lines (@BTLvid) December 18, 2018