No Ozil, No Problem for Arsenal

By Azeez Said

MESUT OZIL

The bad thing about big money transfers is that players involved are almost definitely guaranteed a starting place in their new team irrespective of their form compared to other players in the team. Arsenal have found themselves in such annoying situation with their record signing Mesut Ozil quite a number of times since his arrival last year.

Though, it can be argued that he has played majority of this season out of position on the left flank with his preferred position known to be the No 10 role, just behind the striker. He showed what he is capable of doing when he was restored there against Aston Villa, scoring a goal and recording an assist.

However, he still goes missing in the big games when he is supposed to justify the amount paid for him even when played in his No 10 role especially against Chelsea where he was supposed to justify Wenger's decision not to sign back Fab4, but he did little to do that and with Fabregas on top of the assist chart, Arsenal fans would be left thinking what could have been had they signed the Spaniard.

Wenger cannot play him now because he is injured and he could be out for the next 3 months. I watched Arsenal matches last season when Ozil wasn't in the team due to injury and the team looked balanced from defence to attack with everybody helping each other out on the field. With Ozil out, players like Cazorla and Ox can really benefit from his absence and I don't think they are really going to suffer from his absence because they have a lot of players that can fill in for him and with Walcott and Gnabry coming back from long term injuries, it can't really get better for the Gunners.