So the haters are saying Arsenal don't really need Ozil, now assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, it never hurts a team to sign a world class calibre player to the side, even if you don't need him, he will only make you better, so we're still going to get strong with the addition of Ozil, thanks. Anyways, people who say Arsenal don't need Ozil obviously haven't been paying attention to what's been happening at Arsenal, let's talk about the short term, recently we have released two creative midfielders who play wide for us, Gervino and Arshavin. On top of releasing these 2 players, we then lost another 2 wingers to injury, Podolski and OXO, with OXO looking to return in November, and Podolski in December. So we were very short when it came to creative wingers, the only options we had was Theo, Cazorla, and Rio. Now the fact that we're playing Cazorla out wide has a chain effect as it means he doesn't play as our creative middle man, which is where he usually plays for us when all wingers are fit, and so the only real maestro creative midfielder we had was Rosicky. So now you can see how badly Ozil was needed, getting Ozil means we have taken care of the Cazorla problem, we can now shift Cazorla out wide, and compensate his loss from the middle of the park with Ozil, and if you ask me, having a world class player like Ozil take charge of being our new creative middle man is some splendid business. Now we also still have Rosicky, but I doubt anyone will say that Ozil is not a fine upgrade to Rosicky, Rosicky is top top class back up, and for any big club, you always want to have back up, and Rosicky as back up is some fine depth in the creativity department. Now people bring up Wilshere, and Ramsey, but people who bring up Wilshere and Ramsey as creative CAM obviously don't know what they're talking about, yes Wilshere and Ramsey can create, but they're more of the box-box type midfielders, the machines in midfield that keeps things moving, rather than the Fabregas type maestro who threads the passes and makes the plays and goals happen, which is what Ozil is. Ozil will make the plays happen, while the likes of Wilshere-Ramsey will hustle and bustle in midfield and give that extra creativity as well, while the likes of Arteta-Flamini will provide the protection. So hope this clears everything up, Ozil was needed at Arsenal, and will be a solid addition to our starting 11.
And Santi has to play wide because of a lack of wingers as I explained, so we lose Cazorla in the middle, plus, Ozil is better than Cazorla. We needed a new winger all season, well guess what? We can now play Cazorla as a winger which solves the winger issue, but having Cazorla out wide means we needed a new creative midfielder, and that's Ozil.
Santi doesn't solve the winger issue, because he doesn't give adequate cover to Gibbs, who can't defend very well.
If Gibbs doesn't defend well enough, he can always be dropped for Monreal. I think our defense has been doing well enough with Cazorla there anyway. It depends on the opposition too, so against Man City (with Zabaleta), we might be better off with defensive options on that side.
Most wingers usually don't give enough cover, they're more attack oriented so they're defensive play is never going to be top notch, but Cazorla does often track back and does press on the opposition, there's a even a youtube video that puts all of Cazorla's skill in one video, and you can see he's very good in interceptions and winning the ball back. If you even watch Podolski sometimes, his covering back isn't that good sometimes either, the same with Walcott, I'd say Walcott's probably the worst of the lot in tracking back, but none as bad as Arshavin. I'm not expecting the most defensive minded winger, just that they're not as lazy as Arshavin, and so far, our wingers, including Cazorla, do a good enough job of providing cover, as good a cover you want coming from attacking wingers. Plus having 3 men in centre midfield, also means they share in tracking back, so for example, the left playing centre midfielder has a job to help provide cover on the wing and give protection to Gibbs, like Wilshere for example, it's not always the wingers duty to track back, especially if you're playing in the 4-3-3-4-2-3-1 system Arsenal play now, if it was 4-4-2 the winger would have a bigger role in tracking back and providing cover for the full backs, but with the extra men in central midfield, more of that comes down to them now. :-D.
I think Walcott is actually one of the better ones at tracking back. Because he knows he can use his pace to get down to the opposition end of the pitch.
In most teams its the job of the DM to cover the fullbacks when they're out of position, hopefully Flamini will do taht
Depends on the formation and the system. Sometimes the wingers will get back, sometimes the CBs will slide over and sometimes, as you say the DMs will cover. Sometimes it will be all 3 and whoever is closest. For a while the CBs were sliding over for us, but I haven't really been watching for that this season.
The solution may be to play the more defensive Monreal if Santi is on the wing. It's good to have full back options for once. Away against big teams Sagna & Monreal can provide stability & experience, while at home against more open teams Gibbs & Jenks can provide the attacking threat Santi & Theo are expected to track back, but having Flamini & Ramsey in the centre will help a lot, freeing up Ozil to do what that man does best
Ozil's signing is important in so many ways. The most obvious being what A87 has highlighted in his post. He will raise our creative play to 07/08 proportions, where we were a very dangerous team, that kept possession very well and created A LOT. But the second and most important reason is for our overall growth as a football team. We've brought in our first ready made World class player since Bergy (though players like Overmars, Henry etc become that soon after joining). This shows that we've gone past our financial restrictions and that the thing that Wenger's been working on for so long is finally coming to fruition. This has signalled our intent that we are prepared to battle with the best. We have now opened our gates to all the top players in the world and Wenger is there saying come and play with us. The last sentence is a bit dodgy
Ozil is a class player that could get in any team in the PL, he may not be exactly what you need but he certainly improves your team.
Ozil is exactly what we need. World Class ..check Big name ...check Fits into our style of play..check
Man, we will be all over teams again like a rash. Ozil's signing has brought the fear back into the opposition teams again. The league has missed a strong Arsenal and it looks like we're making a come back.
Ozil will arguably be the most creative midfielder in the prem this year, and some fans still try to find the negatives about signing him. I think that it's just people being bitter and always assuming the worst of arsenal and wenger. In terms of positioning, ozil and cazorla will interchange positions, these are world class players with a vast footballing intelligence, look at how many creative players ozil played with at real and they all managed to play with each other. Also because of the way we play he will fit right in and will receive plenty of the ball. For a while opposition teams were able to identify cazorla as the main creative influence and as long as they man marked him we were unable to break through their defence. Now they have ozil cazorla and wilshere to think about, ramsey is coming onto a game as well and we now look seriously threatening attacking wise, especially when oxo and podolski come back. What wenger will need to think about is who pulls out to the left when we are defending, cazorla unfortunately becomes pretty much non-existent when it comes to defending and i'd imagine ozil won't track back much either so thats something to look at. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...urned-them-into-title-contenders-8797715.html this says a lot as well
I was one of the first to complain about Cazorla not tracking back when he plays on the left. He has improved slightly and I think Gibbs and Monreal might not need to come forward so desperately much if Ozil is there to create. Cazorla has been getting better though and Ramsey, Wilshere and Flamini are better at covering than Arteta was.
Disagree. Arteta was excellent at shielding our defence, but the problem was that he had too much to do at the start of last season. When Ramsey came into the middle, they formed an excellent defensive combo, and Arteta is very clever with the way he does those sly fouls in order to stop any potential counters. Flamini and Ramsey might have more energy, but Arteta is smarter than both and knows where to position himself. Wilshere is nowhere near these three in terms of the defensive side of the games.
Arteta is usually there but he used to have problems when faced with a winger running at him with pace. Very often Koscielney was having to drift over to help.
