Ozil - Do we need him?

[Power n Glory]

Cesc started making a name for himself when Wiltord and Freddie were still in the shirt. And RvC and Arshavin. We THOUGHT we were on a downward slide back then but we had no idea what was to come and how bad it would get. Apart from RvC's one man season, this is the first time in years we've seen an upturn in the quality we have on the pitch. And that's down to 2 players, the ones we need to sign, no excuses, no bullshit.

Cesc got his start when we still had legends like Henry and Pires at the club. Wiltord had left by the time Cesc was starting. Most of the Invincibles were playing limited roles in fact. But I;'m talking about Cesc was he was 16 years old.

When those guys had left and Cesc and Cesc was in his early 20s, the goals and assist increased by quite a margin. From 07/08 onwards. 15 goals, 22 assists, 19 goals, 20 assists....he played at his best without the Invincible guy. RVP was often injured and only after Cesc left did we see RVP at his peak. We never actually saw those two at their peak together. The closest we had was in 07/08 when we came close to the title but RVP picked up an injury.

Arshavin had one good season for us. A good player but doesn't come close to Sanchez. Cesc also had Nasri but he doesn't compare to Cazorla.

Pound for pound the squad we have no is a lot better than what we have now but we play terrible football.

[mastermind84]

Ozil the best player we have had since Henry? Not even close...peak Cesc was better than him, he was blitzing it with assists and goals...

RVP too was better than him or more crucial to the team.

Don't get me wrong Ozil is a very good player and someone who we need to move forward but he's not our best since Henry IMO.

hell no! Not even close, and he wasnt a big match player.

Ozil is Filet Mignon, Cesc is roast beef.

RVP had a great 18 months but was injured the rest of the time.

Ozil’s style is too subtle and too dependent on his own team mates being able to exploit the space he creates. It’s why things didn’t work with Giroud

he damn near set the premier league assists record in the premiership with Giroud last year, so maybe his subtle style actually boosts his teammates production?

And yes, Sanchez is scoring more because of Ozil. THe chances he is getting now are clean as fack because he and Ozil have created a strike partnership. Alexis does not appreciate space at all and will move any and everywhere. If you have him partnering Theo or Giroud, Alexis will be on their toes. Having someone like Ozil to move defenders for him, and anticipate where Alexis will be so that he can move into the vacated space is influential in our attacking play.

I really hope Ozil does not get injured because our attacking play ALWAYS craters when he is out and our team is nowhere near as good. Ozil is a damn alien. You don't replace players like him, you completely change your system. Alexis, you can find replacements. Whether Arsenal can afford to do it is a different conversation, but he can be replaced. Ozil is probably the most unique player on the planet.

and if he were to play for a lower team like West Ham or Southampton, he’d have to be more proactive.

If Ozil played for those teams, his teammates would become more productive.


I have to constantly say this because a lot of posters on this forum do not really get what Ozil does even after all this time, but he makes his teammates perform better. That is his super power. Our eyes are trained to focus in on the guy who is running like mad, scoring goals, or playing no look final balls because its easier to see that. We understand that. Ozil is something completely different. He plays passes to set up chances that are down the line. He creates chances by moving into certain spaces. And he always finds space, which is crazy considering where he receives the ball on the pitch, and he has accurate passes in the most congested area on the pitch. I dont care if that comes across as snobbish and condescending, its just the truth. Its why you have idiots like Ray Wilkins, Robbie Savage, etc saying they dont rate Ozil that highly and that Wilshere could replace him because they have good technique and can pick a pass. The guy is absolutely special. I hope we dont have to make that choice between those two, but if we had to choose between Ozil and Sanchez, its Ozil and its not even close.

[Power n Glory]

Mastermind...in fact, this question goes out to everyone. Are we playing a completely different style of football never seen at Arsenal before?

I have to constantly say this because a lot of posters on this forum do not really get what Ozil does even after all this time

This is what I also disagree with. It's not hard to understand what he does, it's a question of how effective it is. The hat trick he scored against Ludogorets, his game against Napoli in his first season....if we were showing that sort of form week in week out which would you say is more effective?

[Marc Overmars]

My opinion of Ozil has gone up and down but I've warmed to him and I understand the work he does. However I don't think he belongs on too high of a pedestal, that's pretty much absolving him of any responsibility and no player is above that. Opinion on him is mixed with good reason, he is just as guilty as anyone of going missing in the big moments.

[Power n Glory]

he damn near set the premier league assists record in the premiership with Giroud last year, so maybe his subtle style actually boosts his teammates production?

In Giroud's first season, without Ozil in the team and without Sanchez, he scored 17 in total. 11 in the league. In Ozil's best season for us he scored 24 in total, 16 in the league. It's an improvement but not massive.

Say what you want about Cesc and Ade, but Ade has never scored 30 in a season ever since and he wasn't close to being a 30 striker prior to Cesc either. Couldn't even scrape 20 goals. Giroud had at least managed to score 25 goals before coming to Arsenal and hasn't topped that record since.

[Niall_Quinn]

Cesc got his start when we still had legends like Henry and Pires at the club. Wiltord had left by the time Cesc was starting. Most of the Invincibles were playing limited roles in fact. But I;'m talking about Cesc was he was 16 years old.

When those guys had left and Cesc and Cesc was in his early 20s, the goals and assist increased by quite a margin. From 07/08 onwards. 15 goals, 22 assists, 19 goals, 20 assists....he played at his best without the Invincible guy. RVP was often injured and only after Cesc left did we see RVP at his peak. We never actually saw those two at their peak together. The closest we had was in 07/08 when we came close to the title but RVP picked up an injury.

Arshavin had one good season for us. A good player but doesn't come close to Sanchez. Cesc also had Nasri but he doesn't compare to Cazorla.

Pound for pound the squad we have no is a lot better than what we have now but we play terrible football.

That's my point. Cesc developed in a far more productive and gifted environment than that which Ozil was parachuted into. Cesc complimented what was already there. Ozil is very unfairly expected to build something from scratch. And correct, what I said, now Ozil has a proper player to work with we can slowly see the quality of our game trend up. Still in patches, still with great inconsistency. But for the first time in a long time you can see the reemergence of quality. Of course we are still 2 players short. Always 2 players short. If we spend 100 mill on 2 top tier players in the summer, and get that business done early, not only should we retain our two star players but by adding 2 more I don't see why we couldn't go toe to toe with anyone in this league. It's on that knife edge. At one extreme we lose 2 stars and it's back to square one. At the other extreme (which isn't extreme at all and in fact is what we should be doing and should have done a long time ago) add a couple more stars and really push on. I wonder which way the club will go? Yeah right.

[Niall_Quinn]

Mastermind...in fact, this question goes out to everyone. Are we playing a completely different style of football never seen at Arsenal before?



This is what I also disagree with. It's not hard to understand what he does, it's a question of how effective it is. The hat trick he scored against Ludogorets, his game against Napoli in his first season....if we were showing that sort of form week in week out which would you say is more effective?

No. Quite obviously we've seen better football at Arsenal, in fact possibly the best football ever seen anywhere (in terms of sheer entertainment at least).

However. We now have 2 pieces of a puzzle that clearly has the potential to deliver special football. Or say 6 pieces if you roll Kos, Cech, Bellerin and maybe Xhaka into that mix. Santi is on the way out. Theo is Theo. Ramsey seems determined to avoid hi potential. Wilshere is probably done now. So 6 pieces. We need 8-10 more. They don't have to all be multi-billion quid superstars, but they need to be a step up from what we have. An ambitious manager with a football focused board could do special things at this club, the sort of thing the other lot can't replicate with a limitless chequebook.

[Power n Glory]

That's my point. Cesc developed in a far more productive and gifted environment than that which Ozil was parachuted into. Cesc complimented what was already there. Ozil is very unfairly expected to build something from scratch. And correct, what I said, now Ozil has a proper player to work with we can slowly see the quality of our game trend up. Still in patches, still with great inconsistency. But for the first time in a long time you can see the reemergence of quality. Of course we are still 2 players short. Always 2 players short. If we spend 100 mill on 2 top tier players in the summer, and get that business done early, not only should we retain our two star players but by adding 2 more I don't see why we couldn't go toe to toe with anyone in this league. It's on that knife edge. At one extreme we lose 2 stars and it's back to square one. At the other extreme (which isn't extreme at all and in fact is what we should be doing and should have done a long time ago) add a couple more stars and really push on. I wonder which way the club will go? Yeah right.

At our time where we quickly stripping away the Invincible squad and selling a star a season during the Emirates transition. You'd consider that a more productive and gifted environment? Where we were the least active team in the transfer market and yet to break our Wiltod transfer record? You have to rethink that one. Project youth? Come on now. We couldn't defend for toffee! We'd play inexperienced kids in all positions. Today's squad has all internationals, experienced players that have actually won something with previous clubs and country.

We had to transition from the Invincibles 4-4-2 to 4-5-1 and on to 4-3-3 with Cesc's era. We had to build from scratch. Literally. We were a total mess and Wenger had to tear up the rule book whilst working to a much smaller budget compared to what we have now. No way would we have been able to get Cech from Chelsea. We'd have never spend that much money on Mustafi during an injury crisis. Heck, we'd have never bought a player like Welbeck if our main striker went injured before the season kicked off.

Our system isn't perfect right now but we have way more options to play with in terms of experience. We haven't had a sell a main starting players in ages and have been able to build for once. I strongly disagree.

[Power n Glory]

No. Quite obviously we've seen better football at Arsenal, in fact possibly the best football ever seen anywhere (in terms of sheer entertainment at least).

However. We now have 2 pieces of a puzzle that clearly has the potential to deliver special football. Or say 6 pieces if you roll Kos, Cech, Bellerin and maybe Xhaka into that mix. Santi is on the way out. Theo is Theo. Ramsey seems determined to avoid hi potential. Wilshere is probably done now. So 6 pieces. We need 8-10 more. They don't have to all be multi-billion quid superstars, but they need to be a step up from what we have. An ambitious manager with a football focused board could do special things at this club, the sort of thing the other lot can't replicate with a limitless chequebook.

Exactly. Which goes back to my last post about Cesc and how the team has been developed since the Invincible squad broke apart. The tippy tappy super possession style we complain about got old way before Ozil arrived and we’re still playing the same stuff and encountering the same problems. Mastermind is talking as if we’ve never played possession football before or had a team that could create chances. We used to create far more clear cut chances and waste a heck of a lot more.

As for the missing piece of the puzzle….that’s the 2% away from domination argument. We’ve heard that before. We’re a better team with Ozil but I think people go overboard with it.

[mastermind84]

a) who said we havent played possession football before?
b) where did I say anything about Ozil bringing a great style of play to Arsenal?
c) stop putting words in my posts that are not there.
d) Ozil is a much better player than Cesc was for us
e) we aren't exactly playing possession football this season.
f) Ozil 2 trophies where he was a key cog in the team, Cesc 0
g) Ozil was the first established world class player brought to Arsenal since Sol Campbell and the first attacker that was world class since Bergkamp
h) When Ozil has bad games, our attack goes rotten. He has a lot, but he is remarkably consistent
i) If you say something lke "Ozil needs to score a hat trick to show how great he is" then no matter how much you type it, you don't understand Ozil's value to this team.