The Arsenal Thread XX

It is not all about Ozil. He is not an Henry, obviously. But we are building a team here, not a one man team. We are not the ones bigging him up too positively, we are responding to the bullying by the press of this guy. I think the real reason stems from the fact he is German, Muslim , and a North London (i.e. southern) Arsenal man. It is just that the media and opposition obsession with Ozil as an individual is insane really. Right now, I don't think he gives a ****. Ballack, Kahn, all those idiots who never won a WC with Germany can shut up now about him. They can go enjoy their silver medals and talking on tv.

Well, I'm very partial to Germans, I'm a muslim and a Londoner myself, and I've heavily criticised Ozil this year (and been subject to the whole 'you're just following a media bandwagon' bull**** as a result). Truth is that his performances in parts of the season for Arsenal were very lacking, his effort and body language was poor and just not acceptable at all really. Can't be bothered to have a debate on him but yeah, whilst I think Ashton etc obviously go overboard, Ozil has deserved a lot of the stick he's been given.

Very interesting question, never thought about that before.

I'd say that Robben was the better player and Schurrle won't get to his level. Hope I'm wrong but I see Robben as a better footballer. I'm probably doing a disservice to Schurrle as he's only 23 but I feel that there's something missing, I think it's his link up play with the other midfielders. He generally lays the ball off to a player and makes a run rather than linking up with quick interplay, like Robben did for us and Hazard does.

I'm a Robben fanboy but Robben would whizz past people with ease and while he was so predictable with his runs they were very hard to stop, he's also better at scoring solo goals and creating something out of nothing. Schurrle imo is the kinda guy who works hard, makes good runs, will make the most out of his chances and has good dribbling ability, something like a fast dribbling but not as intelligent version of Thomas Muller. Schurrle is also a space player, so if he doesn't have space to run at people he's going to lay the ball off backwards(making the attack lose momentum) and find some space as he doesn't have that ability to create a chance when he's being tightly marked. While players Hazard, Robben, Ribery, Messi, Aguero, Sturridge, Suarez etc. can create a chance out of relatively little.

He was terrible in most big games. But, that is because of the team, not him. As I say, he is not an individual type of player, his quality of play really depends on how the rest of the team is playing and how it is set up. Ozil is not the type of player that will drag you through a game, we don't expect that of him either. And yet critics tend to assume that he should be?
He is a very specific type of player, I doubt the vast majority of English football fans have the footballing maturity to understand the tactical aspects of where he fits in.

He was terrible in most big games. But, that is because of the team, not him. As I say, he is not an individual type of player, his quality of play really depends on how the rest of the team is playing and how it is set up. Ozil is not the type of player that will drag you through a game, we don't expect that of him either. And yet critics tend to assume that he should be?
He is a very specific type of player, I doubt the vast majority of English football fans have the footballing maturity to understand the tactical aspects of where he fits in.

I understand this. But I also think that it's a poor excuse. Think e.g. qua said that Wenger may be trying to get more out of Ozil, he doesn't want to be squeezing the juices of his talent to just feed fast wingers, which made him a very efficient cog in the Madrid machine but to make him a better player.

For 42M you can't be having a passenger that only decides to play well when the team is playing well. It was one of Arsenal's fans and City's biggest criticisms of Samir Nasri e.g.

So if you end up with no pace on the wing again next season are we just going to say that it's ok if Ozil is playing rubbish and causing you to concede goals while creating little, yet praise him the second the team are playing well and he's doing well with the team?

Btw Ozil at Madrid was my favourite attacking midfielder to watch, remember a game he had against bilbao where he had an absolute field day.

That was an inflated figure. He is only worth £25m, £30m max, and even other Arsenal fans here such as Zurich say that. We paid that figure because we needed to make a statement at the time. We needed to be taken seriously by other big players as we had many years of being at a dip. It is unfair on Ozil to be a victim of his transfer fee when no real footballing mind considers him to be at the level that justifies that fee.

Liverpool, Liverpooollllll. Wah wah , Steviee Gerrard, wahhh.

Isco costed 23M

Who had a better World Cup Fred or ozil?

Does anyone know why Arsenal are signing Khedira? Where is he going to play?

He'll play next to Ramsey if we sign him.