The Wizard of Özil

[Ach]

Former Germany midfielder Mesut Ozil wants to see out the final year of his Arsenal contract but the Gunners want to offload the 31-year-old, who is on £350,000-a-week, this summer for financial reasons. (ESPN)

[Nuggets]

I remember back in the day when footballers actually wanted to play and would do anything to get on the pitch.

Sadly those days are long gone, at our club anyway.

[theHotHead]

Those days are long gone everywhere. Money killed football as we knew it

[VCC]

Not so it's just the culture that is always changeable

[Byron Gomez]

ANOTHER player leaving for cheap/free because 1 year left on contract/contract runs out lol. Classic Arsenal.

[immsun]

The team needed binding n link up play but yes drop the best playmakers and play idiots instead n loose the game.

[Angelito]

We hadn't lost a game all year.

All of a sudden he drops Ozil, Emeryball returns and we start to lose.

Ozil rules the dark side.

[themessiah]

Not a Ozil fan but Willock is miles away kid needs to be loaned out.

[Angelito]

I think Ang, you were possibly a bit unfair saying Eddie won't make it, but I agree on the Willock point. I don't mind Willock but he was never going to amount to much on Wednesday. That game needed either grabbing by the cojones which I don't think Willock would, but I don't think Ozil would either or it needed someone who would be able to slow the game down.

What Ozil would give you is that composure on the ball and that through ball that Auba was going for and so was Eddie with City's high line.

Is that worth £350k p/week? No. Is that Ozil's fault? No. And people here need to stop acting like it is.

Reckon Eddie is someone who can be a Prem-level striker for a mid-table club. I'd be glad if he broke that ceiling. I don't think he can. Bielsa said that people think Nketiah is ready, but he's not. Pep-wanna-be, or Txiki-wanna-be, might disagree. But we can see the results.

It's wishful on the part of fantasy writers like Sanllehi and Arteta to think they could create a David Villa out of him.

Willock, on the other hand, has he done anything worthwhile than made Arteta and Emery hard? I haven't seen it.

We have two potential class players in Martinelli and Saka. I have no idea why Martinelli is getting this step-motherly treatment.

Is it because he's not grafting like a donkey in training?

That's also a major problem in football today. You had certain players who didn't train hard but were geniuses on the pitch. Not everyone has to be a donkey on the pitch. This is something Wenger and SAF knew.

Today, we seem to enter the corporate mode where every employee has to give their 100% to appear that they're in it. Spontaneity and inventiveness have lost charm. When you have managers like Conte and Simeone, it will work because they're gritty managers. For managers who want to play an expansive game, that won't work.

Football is a cruel profession. When you're 18, just fresh off school, going to Uni, mistakes in life don't matter. In football, it tends to. As Wenger said, you can gauge a player's potential by the time he is 18. Some are late-bloomers, so 21 or 23. Drogba was a late-bloomer. Cesc peaked early.

I honestly don't feel Nketiah has world class potential. He could turn into the next Drogba or Vardy. I don't know that. He does have mobility and the look of a decent player. But top quality? I'm not so sure.

I'd rather send Nketiah on loan to Forest or QPR. Let's see what he does there.

Sometimes training hard alone doesn't mean you've come of age. Ozil was never someone to train hard. But he delivered on the pitch. The corporatization of football means the slavery attitude has imbued in.

In today's football climate, Xavi, Ozil, Iniesta, Riquelme, Pirlo, Pires, Zidane, etc. would be overlooked for someone like Charlie Adam. Is that right?

Sometimes, let these languid geniuses rise. Training is to prepare. It's not the end-all and be-all of football.

[elkanofan]

In today's football climate, Xavi, Ozil, Iniesta, Riquelme, Pirlo, Pires, Zidane, etc. would be overlooked for someone like Charlie Adam. Is that right?

Sometimes, let these languid geniuses rise. Training is to prepare. It's not the end-all and be-all of football.

Very true and sad state of affairs to modern football.

Cesc spoke about this in that talk with Henry last month.

[jayramfootball]

Not a Ozil fan but Willock is miles away kid needs to be loaned out.

Willock should not be loaned out - he should be shipped out.
He doesn't even have the slightest of talent for this level of football.

[jayramfootball]

We hadn't lost a game all year.

All of a sudden he drops Ozil, Emeryball returns and we start to lose.

Ozil rules the dark side.

Yep - we'd started to play better with Ozil.
He's the one player we have who can retain possession and make intelligent decisions on the ball.
Arteta has made a rod for his own back - pandered to the media pundits who always rag on Ozil and it cost us points.
Now, what does he do? Admit he was wrong and bring back Ozil + play Martinelli?
I fear he is going to continue to show how much like Wenger he is and stubbornly stick it out.

[DiamondGooner]

Have to agree with the comments.

Managers these days have had their authority clipped by the board to the point where they're not even called managers anymore but "Coaches", this has led to managers under strain demanding players run like Hamsters in training ....... if their not talented, fine, because if your not talented you need to be showing something, desire and stamina in itself (position dependant) is an attribute but some players will work smart, not hard.

Zidane, Figo, Rivaldo, Pele, Bergkamp, Cruyff ........... hardly busted a gut on the field, they didn't need to, they were artists and could play some of the best football you'd ever seen.

Managers these days do unfortunately do tend to stifle such genius because their position is constantly under threat.

Where is the leeway that Wenger used to develop Henry into one of the deadliest strikers in football history? where is the leeway Zidane got in midfields in some of the best teams in football to score goals like the Real madrid final or Scholes Utd goal from near the halfway line?

When did we ever expect Scholes to work as hard as Keane, or Bergkamp to work as hard as Vieira? players had roles back then, now everyones role is to just train hard, that is not a skill.

You'll never see Willock score a goal like this in his life.





Whens the last time we saw goals like these?

[swipe right]

Huh? Isn’t this exactly what you people railed on Wenger for? Craft vs. graft? Now you miss the days of managers having full authority and stamping their personalities on the club? You’ll destroyed what we had for this new model and now seem to realize it doesn’t work. Too late.

[DiamondGooner]

Huh? Isn’t this exactly what you people railed on Wenger for? Craft vs. graft? Now you miss the days of managers having full authority and stamping their personalities on the club? You’ll destroyed what we had for this new model and now seem to realize it doesn’t work. Too late.

Urhhm no.

We're not saying to have a team full of Ozil's, we're saying your allowed one or two Ozil's if you have the grafters around them but our new managers don't appreciate or know how to handle flair players.

Its about roles and its about the fact that previous managers had the power to pick and buy players to fit a certain role they needed and to support the other roles they had in the team.

We didn't demand that Wenger's replacement be a certified "Yes man" with curtailed power, that was the clubs decision because football has moved that way.