All about Mesut Özil

In football, the problem with appearing nonchalant is that you’re at the mercy of your team’s collective performance. When Dimitar Berbatov was challenging for the title, he was languid. When battling relegation with Fulham, he was merely lazy. When Swansea were winning the Capital One Cup under Michael Laudrup he seemed effortlessly cool, but once they started to struggle, he looked like he didn’t give a toss.

Mesut Ozil is another prime example, although the German is a contradiction -- he's laid-back, unhurried and casual, but also depends upon bursts of movement, often on the counter-attack. He’s not an archetypal No. 10 who slows the tempo, he’s a modern, dynamic and versatile attacking midfielder capable of striking quickly and efficiently.

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Unquestionably, Ozil’s form has dipped over the past month. Only his second half at Southampton, when he took hold of the game and drove Arsenal forward, is evidence of his raw star quality.

But does this dip in form cancel out his bright opening? Or, to put it another way, is it problematic if a player’s best performances are clustered together, rather than spread out over the course of the campaign? It’s not a rare problem for a playmaker -- David Silva, for example, was playing astonishingly effective throughout the first half of Manchester City’s title-winning campaign in 2011/12, but underperformed after Christmas. His average level of performance over the course of the season, though, was still very good. That’s roughly what’s happened with Ozil: only Wayne Rooney has recorded more assists, and only Silva has created more chances.

There are mitigating circumstances, too -- Ozil has suffered more than anyone because of Theo Walcott’s absence. The two are theoretically perfect together, with Ozil playing the through-balls and Walcott running in behind. Lukas Podolski, who provides something similar from the left, has also been absent and isn’t at full sharpness, a setback considering the way he’s combined with Ozil at international level over the years.

It’s also worth wondering whether Ozil is suffering physically, too. At Real Madrid it became a running joke how frequently he was substituted by Jose Mourinho, which was partly because Mourinho asked his playmaker to make continuous bursts into the channels, and knew these dried up when the German became fatigued.

In English football the pace is more intense, Ozil has started almost every game, and – aside from a brief injury absence – he hasn’t enjoyed the winter break he’s been accustomed to. Again, a post-Christmas dip in a debut season has been a problem for Silva, Juan Mata, Rafael van der Vaart and Michu, other players who arrived from La Liga and performed superbly in their first few months, before appearing tired by the spring.

It’s worth underlining, too, that Ozil is just twenty games into his Arsenal career. The expectations upon modern footballers making an instant, consistent impact are quite incredible, and you wonder how mid-season reviews of previous Arsenal legends would have read. Dennis Bergkamp struggled to adapt to the pace, with manager Bruce Rioch openly wondering whether he could play two games in a week. Robert Pires criticised the physicality and seemed a downgrade on Marc Overmars, while Thierry Henry struggled in front of goal and admitted midway through the campaign that he needed to “go back to school and be re-taught everything about the art of striking.”

Compared with those players’ first 20 games, Ozil has been much better. This is a comparison, too, with players who came to the club either having previously named in the top three in the Ballon D’Or, in Bergkamp’s case, or having won the World Cup. Ozil’s adaptation to the league remains impressive, his direct and indirect impact on Arsenal quite extraordinary.

danyjr wrote:Once the donkey's out, he'll get back to his godly status.

RealGunner wrote:

danyjr wrote:Once the donkey's out, he'll get back to his godly status.

You win the Giroud round but I won the Ramsey one

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RealGunner wrote:See today's match and then come back to me with the garbage posts in this thread like "Another Mata","only assist padder" and "60 minutes player"

Our best player by an absolute mile along with Szczesny. Feel so sorry for him to play with CMs at wide areas and a traffic cone upfront. Everytime he wanted to start a counter he faced with players slower than prime Denilson.