BATE Borisov vs Arsenal. 14/2/19. 17:55

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No Ozil and Ramsey. :rolleyes:

BATE haven't played a game since December. Should be pretty easy, well whatever easy means for us these days.

0-3.

Playing these farmers again. :lol:

We haven’t risked Sokratis, which is good to see.

Ramsey reminding us of his injury legacy before he leaves, which is a nice touch.

Oh, and Ozil :lol:

Can't believe this thing with Ozil and Emery is dragging on, Emery should just swallow his pride incorporate him until the end of the season then sell him, his market value will be higher if he does and he performs well, if he doesn't play we'll not only find it harder to sell him, but we'll probably get less for him. It's not like he have anyone better.

There's a real lack of common sense going on here, 350k going down the drain every week.

Yeah it’s quite galling thinking how much money we are pissing away with Ozil.

Obviously we are not clued up on the situation. However the way in which this situation is being handled from the outside looks so bad, no matter what happens now, if we look rid, we have absolutely no leverage when it comes to negotiating with any potential buyers.

They’re going to see Ozil as a pain in the ass that Arsenal want rid of. In addition they’ll regard Ozil as a potential risk to them. This will all be reflected in his transfer value which is dwindling all the while this situation festers.

We may possibly end up with a token transfer fee which will of course be ‘undisclosed’ while having to pony up for a portion of his ludicrous salary.

The way we mismanage players and contract situations really is ridiculous.

I'm not sure how much leverage we have anyway. His high wages were always going to mean we take a hit on the transfer fee, as no-one is paying a high fee plus anything close to that sort of wage. The difference in value is only going to minimal. Plus, the way he handled the German team issue already showed his attitude was risky.

The real mistakes were made by Gazidis putting this deal on the table.

His absence has made no difference to our performance levels. We're closer to the top four without him, and scoring just as much upfront.

The problem is, unlike Ramsey, he can't impact a game from the subs bench. Although, he rarely seems to impact a game from the starting eleven nowadays.

Whether or not there is pressure coming from upstairs about whether to not use him to avoid paying appearance and potential assist/goal fees is something we'll never know sure.

Bored of the whole thing tbh. Just get rid in the summer, some way, somehow.

If Ozil came into the team, was given a run and started playing really well we'd definitely have some leverage, it might not happen of course, but it certainly won't happen with him out of the team, all it will do is make him harder to shift.

To say he makes no difference to our performance levels is debateable, since he's been out of the team we've struggled to win games and it coincides with our worst run of form, I'm not saying he's the answer to all our troubles, far from it, but Iwobi has no end product, Mikhi has been very average and we don't have any other options, plus he's paid 350k a week, playing him would at least mean it's not just totally wasted.

Yes we know the deal on the table was wrong, but I disagree with it being the wrong deal, at the time we were going to lose our two best players for free (Ozil was one at the time), so that left us with little option, the fans wouldn't have taken well to see both their top players walking away for nothing.

Actually the big error was not handing him that contract, it was allowing him to run down his contract in the 1st place which gave us no room for negotiation, what we should have done is with 2 years left either signed him up on a new contract or sold him, one or the other nothing else.

I don't agree with how Emery has handled this to be honest, it would be fine if we had plenty of decent options in his place but we really don't, moreover our form has been very patchy and yet we've had to stick with the same options because he wouldn't play Ozil, there's not much logic in that.

I get that he doesn't want him at the club, but in the short term he should just make the most of a bad situation so that we can get the best deal when we try to sell him, short term pain, long term gain, right now this is the worst situation possible, we've got very little chance of shifting him.