Match Reaction vs United

[IBK]

That's precisely the problem I was highlighting.

People will differ on their thoughts on it naturally. I think he is a game changer. I just don't think he's a one man game changer or likely to ever force results in our favour with regularity. I wasn't expecting him to be that sort of player either so regardless of his price tag, I never had much trouble squaring his lack of the knack for the aforementioned.

In fairness there are only a handful of players who regularly change games on their own at this level. Of course no truly great team really relies on one player to constantly do it on their own, but there are but a handful who regularly do it in the absence or whenever their team isn't clicking as well as when their team is playing well.

We would struggle to name more than several players in world football of that ilk.

Personally, I'd sum it up by saying he's a team changer rather than a game changer. All well and good, and of course true game changers are uncommon. But if you look at the traditional top 4 (excluding us), all of them (apart from perhaps Spurs - and they sold their game changer to RM) have 2 or more players who can change a game on their own. As we have seen with our own recent examples - you need players like these to help you pick up points when the team has an off day. Its fair to say that perhaps Ozil is a victim of the type of player he is and the manager's decision to break the bank for that type of player, but 42M is enough money to bring a true 'game changer' to the club. I wouldn't be without Ozil, because clearly he has helped to lift our players. But footballing wise, so far his on pitch exploits have not matched his off-field contribution. That's not reactionary or an indication that he can't go on to become a monster under Wenger's tutilage. Just an observation so far. Lets hope that given what we have paid for him his improvement will be quicker than that of the developmental players who cost a lot less for the manager to develop.