Ozil and Cazorla rated best midfielders in Europe

Winning a couple of cups is noteworthy but in the modern era for a club of Arsenal's size, certainly not above expectation.

Last night was an anomaly on this season's form but then the same could be said for his purple patch after a couple of years of mediocrity, in the big games at least where he has mostly gone missing. You can scream assist stats until you're blue in the face- if he can't be a key player in wins against big sides, as he has finally started doing this season, he will have underachieved for a player of his alleged calibre and price.

 

Thanks Jack.

 

Ill keep waiting for one actual proper footballing argument as to why Ozil has underachieved, based on facts, not rhetoric and arm chair scouting based on one or two games you have watched Ozil in.

 

How much scouting did it take to copy that link?

 

Ozil has improved a lot since his slow start, he still doesn't score enough for me but is certainly a very good player.

 

Actually, for this era, it is important for us, we were on a run of 9 years without a single trophy, yes a club like Arsenal should be winning, but that mentality left the building for a while, but since Ozil has come as part of a new era you can say to finally bring the glory days back, we have started winning trophies again, the cup is a start, the next step up you expect is the league. So it is quite a big deal to have notched up those medals when were were close to a decade with no medals.

His purple patch is not an anomaly, because as previous seasons have shown, he is always among the top assist makers in the league, always within the top 5 at least. His current performances is indicative of the world class he possesses, which is why we bought him, and why he is so highly rated in Europe.

 

An anomaly? He was very good last night, you admitted earlier in the thread that you did not even watch the game. Ozil was the only player in our team who held the ball despite the immense pressing from Bayern, he even opened them up with great passes, but Alexis was very poor and Campbell is average while Giroud was hit and miss last night, so our front three could not really produce when they had the ball.

 

That's an area he can improve on, he did manage 7 in his first season, which isn't so bad, the highest he ever did was 11 in one season for Werder Bremen, at Madrid it was either 7 or 10. If he can get us 10+ goals a season, that would be good. He is on 2 already, so it is achievable.

 

Not much, because I watch him week in week out, so already know how much he creates and assists, only thing is I haven't been able to keep up because he keeps doing it. Thank goodness for those stat people who do record everything down.

If they weren't, you'd think Ozil was some average player with something like only 5 assists in his entire Arsenal career based on how you talk about him. You'd never know he has made history in achieving the most assists in EPL by ratio of starting games.

 

He's had a good start this season, he has to keep it up though it seems to be your main problem every season too many players have bad patches at crucial times.

 

He has actually been good ever since he came back from injury starting from last season, so it's actually been a sustained period of good form.

 

Although I'm chatting footy on here The Gooners need to go to The Meltdown thread.

 

Maybe I just don't place importance on assist stats. Matt Phillips got lots of assist this season. It doesn't mean he's any good

 

I agree, he's been brilliant this season, my point is he has to get double figures assists and goals and spread them out throughout the season. You should be challenging for the league with that squad and too many players have a bad patch at some point and you fall away. I've no idea why but it seems that when it comes to the crunch games at the business end it always seems to go wrong for you. I'd rather see you lot win than City, Utd or Chavs so get a grip.

 

Who is Matt Phillips?

 

I wish I didn't know either

 

Interesting post: why is Carzola not so effective in Europe in your opinion?

 

Cazorla's capable as a deep midfield playmaker when Arsenal are dominating possession.
It plays to his strengths and his weaknesses aren't as apparent, as Coquelin has more of the defensive responsibility.
He can still do what he's good at and not have to worry too much about marking, tackling or tracking back brilliantly.

European sides are either better than the normal Premier League opposition and have more of the ball or they hit on the break.
Either exposes Cazorla's frailties in that role, as he's forced to do more defensively.
It's not what he's good at or what he's used to doing throughout his career.

 

I've always been a fan of the old Rafa formation where 2 midfielders start deep (Mascherano Alonso) we're playing it again now with Can and Lucas, the Gooners could give that a go so that Carzola has a destroyer alongside him.

 

Except Wenger doesn't do destroyers. unlrss he can find one that's 5ft tall and French or Spanish.