You mean like Chelsea, Tottenham, Leicester, City, United, and West Ham, with the only loss coming vs City. The only big dog Arsenal haven’t played since Christmas is Liverpool and they’re up next. BTW of Arsenal’s 9 remaining games, 5 are against the current bottom 5.
I read this article this morning comparing stats of 2021 Odegaard to 2015/16 peak Ozil and 2019/20 Ozil. It's a small sample set, but still interesting. How does Odegaard compare with the two Ozils at Arsenal? (football365.com)
This is a pointless comparison. Statistically he is generally better than 2019-20 Ozil, but not by as much as you might expect, and he is not in 2015-16 Ozil’s class. But Ozil was in his prime and Odegaard is yet to enter the prime of his career. We also shouldn’t forget how good Ozil was, at the same age Odegaard is now, Ozil was a regular starter for Real Madrid with 23 league and Champions League assists and 7 league and Champions League goals.
One thing Odegaard has that Ozil doesn't, which also happen to be a crucial consideration for Arteta is his stamina and defensive contribution.
Did you look at the pressure numbers? 20.6 pressures per 90 minutes to 19.1 for 2019-20 Ozil. To me that doesn’t scream huge difference in defensive contribution or stamina. I’ll repeat Odegaard is better, but not by as much as you might expect. IIRC several months ago Jitty cited Ozil’s pressure numbers under Arteta before the covid lockdown to suggest an insufficient defensive contribution wasn’t the reason Ozil wasn’t playing post lockdown.
There is quite a few misconceptions about Ozil, likely based around the team being so poor during the late Wenger era, but i was a fan of his since the 2009 u21 Euro cup. Ever since the Bremen days - which was a very exciting attacking team including Marin, Hunt, Pizzaro, Frings, Per etc - he was known for electric pace, movement and a pure german countering style. That was the guy who went to Madrid and ended up doing so well under Jose. The Ozil who arrived at Arsenal had huge sprint volumes but Wenger changed a lot of that stuff, reducing his sprints, bulking him up, orienting him more to possession etc etc So he has always been capable of doing all that stuff - but Arsenal just weren't good at it and wenger didn't prioritise it compared to say BVB era Klopp or Bayern era Pep. And as we know, Jose teams tend to sit in the medium block and break from there. e.g. Alexis got so much credit for running around a lot, but i saw a stat recently that his defensive pressure stats were garbage!
Ha! I just think it is overlooked that players tend to be cast in the image of influential managers they play for. So Ozil begins as a pure german counter player - see how he plays at World Cup 2010 for example where germany defend in a low block, and he surely does his share of the work. That will also be true in the 2014 World Cup win where he sacrifices himself for the team. With Jose, it was a good fit because Jose is completely a guy who counters from a medium to low block. Madrid recovered to finally recapture the title during this time. But not a pressing side, unlike Pep's Barca. The conversion of Ozil to a more possession oriented, stronger player with fewer sprints was what Wenger did - not what happened in Spain. So to compare now to MO is odd, seeing Ozil played do few games under MA's system - but it is clear Ozil could easily deliver on it IMO peak Ozil would have been excellent in this system - it would suit him a lot more than the last years of Wenger IMO
but he LOOKED like he tried!!!!!! because body language!!!1!!one! it was the case the whole time they were here. i think a multiple of people actually looked at alexis when he was off ball and he was not particularly active where ozil's running was consistently higher and amongst the top in the team.
Actually I was being semi serious. In less than a week, I will have been on these forums for 15 years, I have a pretty good idea of where many of our fellow posters stand on different issues. If I were a psychologist I could probably form personality profiles by reading their posts.
Ok. And that’s a good point about judging people’s psychology from years of posts. But I will say that I knew very well Jitty’s love of Mesut. We’ve even sparred a few times over the years over it. But always civilly.
My point was not really about Ozil but more to say players are moulded in the image of their creators For Ozil, his primary influencers were Schaaf, Loew and then Jose. If you guys can remember, that exciting 2010 German team that spanked Argentina and England played in a low block most of the time and was explosive on the counter. So Ozil was a classic counter player in the Jose style - not in the BVB/Klopp pressing+counter style, or in the Pep possession+pressing style. So he was also physically optimised that way. Lots of pace and huge sprint volume. The Ozil of 2014-16 was reconfigured by Wenger, and Loew also transitioned to a hybrid possession style where Kroos and Ozil controlled the game So this version of Ozil has less sprints and is physically bigger As with Alexis, Wenger never required these guys to have high defensive pressures like what we now see under Arteta - but surely both could have done it. I think you'd more need to compare Martin O to players at liverpool where the physical demands are monstrous
I remember we complained a lot about Alexis's headless chicken routine. It is why we had high hopes for Lacazette to help link up play more
and i think he's done that. but i think the people more familiar with him mentioned at the time of the sale that he is a far more limited talent and he has also bore that out.