Ozil hasn't really got going yet this season but it's a bit early to get the pitchforks out. He only has one assist but he's already got 6 goals... he could have even won it against Middlesborough if he held his run. He's showing a real hunger to get beyond the striker and get in the goals. Last season he wouldn't have made those kinds of runs so surely that is trying something different?
I think it was Stillman (who I know you rate P'n'G) that said on a recent podcast when asked about Ozil's goals and lack of assists.....'it's not like he isn't still creating chances'....
I haven't bothered to check but I'm not sure there is a strong correlation between the chances he has created and his number of assists.
Though I have said a bit on Elneny I do think that the main issue is that in tight games like this we just need to take at least one of the few chances we get. We can analyse the crap out of it but there will always be days you don't create as much and on those days, if you don't take your chance(s) you've had it.
It's part of the intangible elements that make up so much of sport. No matter how many data sets, form guides or tactics are drilled into a set of players, off days are going to occur. I'm sure Pep was desperate to get a win under his belt again after stumbling recently and the players would've been too - yet they barely got going on the weekend. Ronaldo has stood over that ball infront of a wall of men hundreds of times in match situations, thousands of times on the training pitch, yet the fucker still hardly puts one in the net.Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
The opposition approach can have just as much say in how effective or not you are going to be on any one day. The problem is that again, that is immeasurable to a certain degree, played out in the smallest of humanistic details on the pitch. So much goes on in the players heads, all of which decides the outcomes of the games. All of which we're not privy to of course. All of which is affected beyond what our eyes and sometimes what their emotions can control. I guess the trick across a campaign is management of those temperaments by the manager and combined with the level of talent at their disposal, that will decide the champions. Football is a simple game but the forces that define it, really aren't.
Yes, I rate Tim Stillman but in games where we're struggling to break a team down but have loads of possession, I think Ozil should be creating more chances. Against Boro and Burnley where we really struggled, he only created 1 chance in each game. Stats certainly don’t tell the whole story but when it comes to chance creation, is he creating the sort of a chances our strikers should be burying or is it just a cut back into a tight area that’s easily charged down and blocked but it still counts as a chance? I’d probably rate Ozil more in the deep laying playmaker role to be honest. His passing is accurate and great for keeping possession but I don’t think he takes enough chances. We aren’t seeing defence splitting passes that make the goal, the type I’ve seen Sanchez and Iwobi craft. It’s probably why I’m harsh on him but as said, if he were playing the Santi role, I’d probably appreciate him a lot more.
It’s worth reading the latest from Stillman. Penguin could be right in regards to Ozil taking on a more goal scoring role. He’s making the runs and has 6 goals but it’s worth remembering 3 of those came in a dead and buried game in the CL against Ludogorets. If Alexis is dropping back and taking on the more playmaker role as a sort of false 9, it probably explains why Ozil isn’t making as many assists. But I feel we have other players that can be that goal threat from that sort of position. We’ll see how the season plays out.
Ozil has taste for goals
It’s amazing that Mesut Ozil has yet to register an assist in the league this season. His role hasn’t refined much, but for those players around him it has. That’s enough to force him to adjust his game a little bit, mainly because his areas of occupation are being occupied. Ozil is known for drifting to the flanks to find space but now those wingers are playing in the “half spaces” he thrives on. Not to mention also, his partner in crime, Alexis, has moved away from the left and that, as we anticipated has altered his game.
The relationship is still there, but now they’re attracted going vertically up the pitch, rather than combining in the left-channel. Alexis has become the creator and Ozil, not so much the finisher in the partnership, but finally beginning to use his ghosting runs to greater effect for Arsenal. That’s also where the space is if Arsenal continue to try and get as many players between-the-lines as possible because somebody has to make those runs, and Ozil is taking responsibility. Wenger, though, explains it best, speaking of the psychological shift involved in Ozil scoring more goals than simply player higher.
“He works quite well on finishing in training,” Wenger said. I believe that every player gets in a habit of having a vision of his game, and sometimes he doesn’t get out of the boundaries he has fixed for himself. He experienced his game as a provider and slowly I think he’s getting the taste to think, ‘oh, maybe I can finish as well.’ That’s what you want him to do, to add that to his game. There’s no reason that he should not finish and score. Hopefully the fact that he scored again on Wednesday night (against Ludogorets) will give him that taste and desire.”
As it happened, Ozil couldn’t quite find the finishing touch against Middlesbrough, though at times, he was the most advanced player. He thought he had found the winner when he deflected Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s shot in, and though it was disallowed, the jubilation initially on his face, showed he has a taste for goals now.
The question is how many opportunities is he giving to team mates to create chances, going back to last season one game i would use as an example is the champions league match against Olympiakos in Athens where Ozil created space for other people to assist Giroud.
There is no doubt Ozil has had a couple of off games this season (most notable for me were against Southampton and PSG) but games i've seen him either taking shots on himself (something you've criticised him for not doing enough of) or releasing other players to make assists.
Like other midfielders he has an infuriating tendency to make sideways and backwards passing in the middle of the park when really he and other should be driving forward and bringing runners with him, but from watching the Middlesborough game we suffered in many aspects.
1) Not recycling the ball quick enough when winning the ball back in our own third.
2) Neither Walcott or Sanchez willing to take on a more conventional forwards role and not being in a position to receive the ball when it was played through the centre.
3) The tendency to over play the ball through the centre and try and thread a eye of needle pass, and even when this came off the player was too far away from goal and not enough players in the box to mop up any goalkeeper spillage.
4) Both full backs being guilty of letting their man past them, and Monreal especially guilty of ball watching in the box and allowing Middlesborough players to escape their marker.
5) Koscielny being left too exposed by poor positional play by Elneny and Coquelin allowing players like Traore too much space to bomb forward at our defence, Mustafi had to put in a cynical challenge of the kind that Xhaka was sent off for last week.
6) Ozil did seem to me like he was getting forward but wasn't trying to orchestrate the game from the middle of the park like he usually does and better passing to players in the final third went begging.
I don't think we're actually disagreeing here, are we? I have said most of these things myself. But I have called it an obsession with possession. Something I thought Wenger might be recovering from following a couple of games where we ceded the possession in favour of direct play and more ambition. I don't believe the players make these decisions themselves though. Revealing comments slip out from time to time, Ozil joking he should have passed to Ramsey when he scored that goal, Santi tongue-in-cheek chiding Alexis, "On the ground, keep it on the ground!"
My feeling is if Wenger could unclench his butt cheeks we'd not only see good football on a more regular basis but we'd have a serious chance of winning this league. His way is the average it out, safe route to that top 4 spot. I'd rather lose a few trying to win a few more.
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We agree on the general approach to our game and the pass pass philosophy, but don't you see that same pass pass philosophy in the way Ozil plays? That's where we bump heads.
Also, Wenger can't micro manage the players every move. It's not that dogmatic. As said, Bergkamp and Henry wouldn't just look to always pass against a stubborn defence. They'd take a risk. The same can be said for Sanchez or even Ramsey and Wenger won't bench those guys for going off script. Heck, Walcott is the opposite of a pass pass player and his numbers are much lower the rest of the squads. Players still have license to how play how they play.
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