"Sorry I didn't thank the fans at the end of the game! You have been brilliant to me and I know you had travelled a long way and spent your money to support us. I was upset with the result and know I should have come to you to say 'thank you' and I know it is a big Arsenal tradition win, lose or draw." First comment "did mertesacker make you write this" HAHAHAHAHA!!!! That is brilliant!!
Ozil after spending a few years at Madrid, forgot about this tradition, seeing as their away support is generally utter **** as not that many Madrid fans even travel to away games. But, Mert has made sure he now understands what to do after every away game, and that incident is one of the reasons why I have strong belief in this team. With guys like Mert, we have proper leaders now and these guys are key in the dressing room, hopefully he rallies the troops ahead of the showdown against the Chavs.
I am more concerned by the fact that he shies away from tackles, physical contact and etc, as well as big games in general. Even bendtner says that with the way Arsenal are playing everyone goes into the stride and plays well. Ozil seems to go in oposite direction. He does not want to take the initiative and at the moment he is a shadow of a player he was in Madrid.
Ok, get ready for a longish reply. He is not here to get stuck in and win tackles, that's not his game. He is the difference maker and will always be that. He is not always involved in the game, but he has been like that for his whole career. Ozil is not like says a Fabregas,Xavi or Iniesta who have loads of touches and look like they are always in the game. But that's not to say that Ozil does nothing when he is not in the ball, in fact, it's the opposite. He is always on the move and always trying to find the space to create chances and try and drag the opposition players out of position. In terms of his performances in the big games, I thought he was good against Liverpool, excellent against Napoli. Against United, he was a doubt ahead of that game with illness so he had that excuse. Against City he was poor in patches, but when we were at our best going forward, he was always there making it happen. Also, I can understand his frustrations at having to play behind a forward like Giroud. Ozil is someone that would prefer to have a forward that makes runs beyond the defence, so he can pick them out with his unreal forward passing. Giroud always drops deep because he has no pace and Ozil does not have that option. The return of Walcott should help Ozil and hopefully Podolski can also help when he gets back. Ozil is a man that Barcelona fans were glad to see the back off because time and time again, he punished them, and the El Classico is arguably the biggest game in the world, so this not a man that is scared of the big stage.
^^^^ Agree, Ozil is not here to make tackles, just like Pires wasn't meant for that either, Vieira even mentioned in the show with Keane, how Pires' defensive work was poor, but that it wasn't a big problem because he made up for it with his great attacking play. Ozil did his job against City by grabbing another Assist.
My memory may be playing tricks on me - age and all that - but wasn't it Pires that tackled Vieira to set up Fabregas's goal that helped knock out Juve in the year we got to the champions league final? I may be wrong........
I agree with you. The only thing about how this all plays out is that we now defend in a 4-4 defence. If Ozil does not learn to defend, that means the two wingers we play have to be solid coming back. Cazorla, Walcott, and Podolski all have their issues defending. I don't expect Ozil to make crunching tackles, but there is no reason why he can't do a better job defensively. He is quick enough and has good feet. No reason why he cant play defence. So while I'm not going to get upset if he doesn't defend well, it would make us a much better team if he was more of a Zidane, who could play both sides of the ball.
