The Pope now supports Ozil’s position ................................ on the Uighurs. https://smartnews.link/w/PMkr
Thankful for Mesut. He came in and ended our trophy drought. I still remember the day he signed for us. best of luck to him
Rory Smith’s piece today reflecting on the Ozil era at Arsenal… https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/...hce-arsenal.html?referringSource=articleShare
Yeah I know, but the NYT historically has allowed everyone to read X articles per day/week without a subscription. Don't know if they still do. Anyway, if I were force do summarize it I would quote just one word from the last paragraph: "anticlimax". But instead of doing that, let me just copy & paste what he wrote. And it was kinda fun to see Arseblog quoted in this prestigious rag! Edit: Apparently my original post/citation was "cleaned up" by moderation. Thanks everyone for looking after my legal liability.
Those moments are exactly why I’ve defended Özil. He is one of then prime practitioners of the beautiful game.
Also, gotta say that if your takeaway from that article was ‘anticlimax’, as was that of @NorthBank, you’d have a very strange perspective.
If you view it from the perspective that Arteta and Arsenal bare at least some responsibility the disappointment that the end Ozil’s Arsenal career became, then it makes more sense. I’m convinced that Ozil Could have offered more, maybe much more, during the first half of the season than Willian did.
I just took Smith’s comments about the moments of magic out of the piece, that’s all I referenced in my original response to the article. So when you commented on the use of the word anticlimax in reference to Ozil’s Arsenal career I offered an alternative explanation for the anticlimax. Clearly the last two and a half years were an anticlimax, a disappointment, but not entirely of Ozil’s making. I read an article recently where Arsène said Özil is a player that needs to feel appreciated, he needs an arm on his shoulder. There are plenty of players who play better when they feel appreciated. After his break with the German National Team, Ozil probable needed that arm on his shoulder more than at any other time in his career, instead he got Emery and then Arteta. Neither of whom have demonstrated the man managements that Wenger has.
Yeah I was being a little careless I guess. Being as they allow 5 free reads per week from what i know. I guess i should just quote some excerpts rather than the whole piece?
That was one of the themes, and I’ll go out on a limb by saying that’s why he chose to use the word “anticlimax“ in his concluding paragraph. (obviously the other big theme, perhaps the main one, was how he produced moments of joy... no doubt about that!) But with Mezut, I’ll admit to being predisposed towards this feeling of anticlimax. Of missed opportunity. Of disappointing level if impact. As I suspect many others are too. Think about How great we all felt when Ozil was signed, and for those first matches he played for us. Then contrast that to how we felt during the final months and years of his tenure with us.
Now that we have lots of years of data to look at, it's pretty clear the final Wenger peak was 2013-15 and then as a group, they went into steep decline. Of course it is no surprise that this period includes the best years of Santi, Alexis, Ozil, Kos, Per, Ramsey in the spine and a reasonable supporting cast. For me the end of his career was more of a waste - that is his peak was spent at a club that was going into reverse, just as we tended to believe we were about to find the missing parts To me in hindsight the bitter truth is that under a failing management and archaic talent acquisition, the team would have collapsed sooner if not for the attacking quality of Alexis, Ozil and Giroud What is annoying is by 2014, having just won the world cup at 25, - Ozil was coming into what should have been his peak as his next 2 seasons were good - but sadly - just 3 years later - in what should have been the years when he really could have used his experience to run a midfield, we just sucked and kept getting worse But unfortunately by 17-18 the team was just bad
The back problems in his later years at Arsenal, under Wenger, Emery, and Arteta, questioned as an excuse by many, have now been confirmed, Ozil has undergone successful back surgery. I suspect the surgery will end his career. I have always wondered whether the weight training he did to adapt to the Premier League triggered his back problems. As Jitty has often pointed out he went from a sprint monster before he came to Arsenal to lower sprint numbers at Arsenal. This may be an object lesson for Arsenal as they set up a training program to help Vieira adapt to the league.
It could just be miles on the clock from a teenage prodigy We've become used to players lasting into their early to mid 30s, but it is certainly not the case for all players.