Welcome Mesut Ozil! The Gunners nation salute you!

Discussion in 'Arsenal' started by charlie15, Sep 2, 2013.

  1. Rewinder

    Rewinder Member+

    Jun 24, 2004
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    He got the start at Anfield in the League Cup.

    We paid Southampton a 5m loan fee for a guy whose contract was up in 6 months. You can bet that guy is not being left out of the squad a few months later.
     
  2. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 16, 1999
    Big City Blinking
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ok. I was trying to suss out what you meant by official backup. Thanks for clarifying.
     
  3. casoccerdad47

    casoccerdad47 Member+

    Mar 31, 2006
    He’s this season’s Stephan Lichtsteiner. They probably signed him because they thought they were selling Maitland-Niles, but then they did a U turn on AMN.
     
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  4. gunner7

    gunner7 Member+

    Jul 27, 2008
    Sunshine California
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don’t buy Arteta’s story on Ozil. Ozil is surely better than Joe Willock. Whatever, what’s done is done. We move on!
     
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  5. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    I also feel like we haven't turned the corner on talent since the Gazidis/Wenger fiascos - but instead made more dumb moves under Raul. The because of Covid, we are left unable to spin the assets, and with an unbalanced squad.

    can't afford all this waste
     
  6. mebeSajid

    mebeSajid Member+

    Feb 16, 2009
    Atlanta, GA
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Ozil’s posts on social media suggest that he was frozen out because he spoke out about China’s on-going genocide is East Turkestan.

    If true, that’s not a good look for Arsenal.
     
  7. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    Does anyone believe this?

     
  8. Rewinder

    Rewinder Member+

    Jun 24, 2004
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    He made those comments in mid-December and kept playing for 3 months after that.
     
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  9. casoccerdad47

    casoccerdad47 Member+

    Mar 31, 2006
    I don’t think that was the intent of his posts, but instead another complaint about the club not supporting him.
     
  10. Shen-O

    Shen-O Member+

    United States
    Jul 26, 2005
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    FREE OZIL
     
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  11. super gooner

    super gooner Member

    Arsenal
    England
    Sep 20, 2020
    He can afford to free himself!!!!
     
  12. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    Thinking more about it, the whole "we have no place in the squad" thing is a total post-facto rationalisation. They decided he wasn't going to be part of the squad one way or the other, and filled the last places accordingly.

    It makes no sense to turn around and say "oh sorry we have no place for our highest paid player". They actively decided not to have a place for him.
     
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  13. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    Honigstein has an article in Spiegel

    Rough translation of the key bits

    https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussba...ergang-a-e70da122-bf2d-4d26-8377-0fbc74a832ee

    The Spaniard's plaintiff tone lent the affair a deliberately tragic note, just as if Özil's premature retirement in the gunners' shirt was an inevitable misfortune. The elegant, but sometimes also phlegmatic ball passer, 32, is simply no longer able or willing to play for Arsenal, according to Arteta's version.

    Özil's camp sees it differently. As former coach Arsène Wenger recently confirmed publicly, the player has always trained well and has done nothing in terms of attitude and fitness, they say; the reasons for the banishment to the stands are primarily not of a sporting nature.

    The dispute over money

    From the player's side, three things came together that turned the club against him:

    In December, Özil criticized the persecution of the Uyghurs in China in an Instagram message, which caused significant unease among the employer: China is an important market for the globally operating club.

    At that time, Arteta, who took over at Arsenal shortly after the affair at the end of December 2019, was still with him. Özil played ten league games from the start under the Spaniard until March and showed quite acceptable performances.

    During the Corona break, however, Özil refused to agree to a salary waiver of 12.5 percent, referring to the unexplained purpose of the money saved and ultimately being right with his concerns: Arsenal laid off 55 employees in the fall, including the long-time actor of Gunnersaurus club mascot.

    Since Arteta had made calls to the players to promote the salary cuts, Özil's "no" was tantamount to losing face for the coach. Perhaps the player's commitment would also have caused problems with cohesion in the dressing room. After the restart of the league in July, Arteta firmly emphasized that Özil's absence had nothing to do with the issue of money, and club circles reported a back injury.

    .....

    Özil's game for time

    But Wenger's last major official act before his involuntary departure the following May soon proved to be a huge mortgage. The renewed missed qualification for the Champions League reduced the budget for rebuilding at the Emirates Stadium. In addition, the new trainer Unai Emery found it difficult to manage the change with the existing staff and some perspective players. When the Spaniard used the team's best-paid professional increasingly sparsely, Özil sensed calculus: Did Emery deliberately dismiss him on behalf of the club management in order to force a move because Arsenal could no longer afford his contract, which is worth over 20 million a year?

    Emery repeatedly opposed this interpretation. "Tactical reasons" alone are decisive, he emphasized. Özil's fragile elegance does not fit into the system of his team, which is more focused on pressing and defensive work, especially not in away games.

    In the summer of 2019, the Gunners tried to sell or loan Özil. But the world champion was not interested. He was playing for time. In contrast to the less respected coach in the dressing room, Arsenal couldn't fire him so easily.​
     
  14. footykid

    footykid Member+

    Jan 10, 2005
    Mississauga, Ont
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    End of the day for Ozil no matter how right he thinks his position is. Arsenal is an institution Ozil is a human, he is the only one with a time constraint, if playing top level football is his priority.
     
  15. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    The Honigstein article gives some good insight if you read between the lines. He is connected to Ozil's camp directly, and also to Arsenal (like any decent journo in the space)

    1. Forget this has anything to do with football.

    2. This dispute really began under Emery. Arsenal made a bad deal they could no longer afford, and decided to try to force Ozil out. Eventually Emery had to give up on that, and ultimately paid with his job anyway because he was rubbish

    3. This is all about the paycut - which Ozil's agent went to the lengths of a public extended interview with Honigstein on Steilcast. Arteta made the mistake of taking on the negotiating role for the club. He should never have done this, because it effectively forces the players to take the paycut if they want to stay onside with the manager who selects the team. But as Ozil's agent correctly pointed out - the players need to be given the info of how the paycut will be applied because if jobs are allegedly to be saved but then those people get sacked (which then happened) why should the players have taken the paycut?

    So of course now the relationship has completely broken down, where each side doubles down.

    I am a bit disappointed in Arteta in all of this. He's taken on the role of lying to fans on behalf of the corporate interest. I suspect he has not much other option, but this is why he should never have gotten involved in the first place.
     
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  16. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    Well yeah - but Ozil is hardly likely to leave £10-18m lying on the table in the corona environment in the next calendar year is he?

    Clearly a sensible buyout figure has to be reached to cancel the contract. And clearly Arsenal are not offering any sensible number right now. Hence resorting to bullshit like this.

    What is "sensible" will depend quite a bit on what contract Ozil can sign to mitigate. If as rumoured he is going to the US - one imagines he won't get paid anything like his Arsenal deal.
     
  17. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 16, 1999
    Big City Blinking
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But we've been told there were at least two other players who disagreed with the pay cut and supposedly they have not been affected. Assuming this is accurate, how does that square? Is it just because Ozil was the most vocal about it, while the others have managed to remain anonymous? Even so it would to some extent belie the theory that refusing the cut was seen by Arteta as a slap in his face.
     
  18. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    In my highly overvalued opinion:

    1. Ozil's agent went public - because for them, this was an escalation on top of the emery fiasco, and trust was all gone. Erkut Sogut made a big deal out of why Arteta agreed to make himself the key negotiator for the club. In his telling, it forced young players who were dependent on Arteta for playing time, to accept the deal or risk being demoted. But implied that Ozil was also one of those people. One suspects those exact conversations were had behind the scenes before they went public. IMO it is that part specifically which is likely the slap in the face.

    2. IMO unsaid is a difference in bargaining power. e.g. we know that initially it was the highest paid players that rejected the deal, which means Auba etc. But Arse 100% needed to keep him ...

    My experience of corporate stuff in the last 20 years is when the things turn sour, it is oh so difficult to rescue the relationships when the trust is gone. This is why Sogut was saying Arteta should not have put himself in the middle of it - but having done so, the fallout between player and manager is now inevitable.

    How is Arteta himself judged internally? If he was expected to deliver the paycuts, you can see how this digs in ...

    All still murky - but one can at least say - it doesn't feel like Ozil wasn't good enough to make the squad
     
  19. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    Unsurprisingly Sogut now brings the fire and noise - aimed at Arteta

    So one sees where the animosity lies IMO

     
  20. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    There is some super bitter/positional stuff here - all aimed at the manager

    This is all with the lawyers for an eventual settlement

     
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  21. thebigman

    thebigman Member+

    May 25, 2006
    Birmingham
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Ozil comes out looking 90% clean as a whistle for me

    he’s done everything right except that bullshit with erdogan

    the whole uihger thing is hillarious to me, everyone wants to bend the knee (rightly) for black lives matter, but no one wants to defend Muslims being sent to working prison camps for their beliefs. It’s why I can’t stand Lebron James and the nba when morey called them out
     
  22. thebigman

    thebigman Member+

    May 25, 2006
    Birmingham
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    yeah, our clubs pr is fcuking awful
     
  23. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    my 02c on all this

    1. The club's position is rather undermined by Ozil's good from in the initial Arteta era

    2. I tend to agree with Sogut about Arteta negotiating the paycut. This should have been handled differently and Sorgut was proved right by the layoffs

    3. Why is Arteta having to take all this on the chin anyway? The club appears to lack a strong front office figure who can deal with this stuff.

    4. One suspects Sorgut/Ozil are hard to deal with. But also, after the Emery/Raul fiasco, why should they leave somewhere in the region of £15m on the table? I wouldn't. And we have no credible info that Arsenal have offered a buyout.
     
  24. CarlosKaiser

    CarlosKaiser Member+

    Arsenal
    United States
    Jul 30, 2018
    Kansas City
    If only Ozil on the pitch was as good as his PR game.

    Love the irony of Ozil waving the pom-poms as head chearleader on twitter while his agent trashes Arteta on ESPN complaining about the club not being honest.

    He burned every bridge back to the club with his Athletic interview back in August, leaving him out of the squad was not a surprise.

    Playing all this out in the media clearly isn't making things better. Ozil has 8 month left on his contract, I'm sure we will have another round of interviews in January and again in June. The club have clearly moved on and Ozil clearly has not.
     
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  25. casoccerdad47

    casoccerdad47 Member+

    Mar 31, 2006
    Since we don’t know their names, we really don’t know whether or not they have been affected. After all the other two could have been Sokratis and Guendouzi, or Torreira, or Nelson, who Arteta has claimed to like, but can’t get any playing time.
     

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