Mesut Ozil Arsenal
Mesut Ozil Arsenal

Arsenal playmaker Mesut Ozil is on the verge of moving out of the Emirates this month and as things stand he is likely to join Fenerbahce in Turkey.

The German has currently been frozen out of the first-team squad at the Emirates and this season, the 32-year-old has not played even a single game for the Premier League side. Speaking about Ozil’s departure from Arsenal, Rio Ferdinand has chosen to lay part of the blame on manager Mikel Arteta, claiming that the Spanish boss could have handled the situation more eloquently.

The pundit told the FIVE Youtube channel, as per The Metro: ‘If I was Mikel Arteta I would have gone in and assessed the situation. Why hasn’t he played previously? Speak to Mesut.

‘And then it’s all about how he applies himself on the training pitch. I’d ask him how it was in the last regime but then I’d give him a clean slate and say, “Right, you go out there and do the work for me. Work on the training pitch and then I see it playing out in the 90 minutes at the Emirates and all the grounds, then we’ll have a great time together”, that’s the way I’d have approached it.

‘The problem is with this whole situation, whether you’re an Arsenal fan or someone looking in as a football fan, we haven’t really been given any insights about how the situation has got to where it has got to.

‘Mesut Ozil is a World Cup winner, a player who played at Madrid and was fantastic there, done some great things at Arsenal. But he’s spending more time sitting on Twitter and Instagram talking about his team and the young players and sending out funny messages than he is kicking a ball and it doesn’t make sense to me.

‘And I want to know the reasons why, like everybody else. Why is he not playing? The kid’s talent is unbelievable. Cristiano Ronaldo was devastated when he left Real Madrid because he was the man who was putting chances on a plate more than anyone for him.

 

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‘If I was a manager, it’s about clarity and consistency with messaging. Don’t leave any grey areas for people like us to keep debating about it and asking questions.

‘Come out in your first press conference or whenever that time is and say, “Listen, he ain’t for me. This kid ain’t for me! He was a great player in the past but he ain’t the same player who I saw years ago and he ain’t good enough to wear this shirt”.

‘So he can either sit in the background and be quiet and train on his own or get his agent to find him a new club. That clarity I think dispels and takes away so much of the grey areas and the debates and the conversations that go around. Because what it all does is it destabilises the club in the end.’

Yes, Mesut Ozil is currently entering the twilight of his playing career but we think this treatment is a result of something that stems beyond the football pitch and is not totally the shortcomings of manager Mikel Arteta.

Ever since Mesut Ozil chose to speak in favour of a specific minority community in China, the player’s career at the Emirates has taken a tumble

Firstly he received a lot of backlash from the Chinese fans and a few Arsenal games were also banned in the country – something that was not good for business(for the PL as well as the Gunners).

So, the Arsenal management very smartly pushed Mesut Ozil out of the limelight so as to protect the image of their club and retain the fan bases in China.

Overall, Ozil might not have been a regular starter in Arteta’s first XI during the 2020-21 season but had he not shown his support for the Uighur Muslims in China, the World Cup winner could have still played a part in the first-team squad.

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