OFFICIAL: Mesut Özil joins Arsenal

There wouldn't be woo-hah if he wasn't eating 18m a year for not even making it to league cup bench.

Also, Arsene-esque dodging from Arteta there

Arsenal to re-open talks with Mesut Ozil over ripping up his £350,000-per-week contract before the January transfer window but German is holding out for almost all his remaining £13m. [@SamiMokbel81_DM]

We don't need the drain of this tit for tat PR battle between Arsenal and Ozil. He's played some good football and for a million reasons, his relationship with the club is over.

Don't know what's feasible for the club financially esp after Partey but it's arguably worth taking a loss now rather than face weekly questions about him along with whatever controversies and media frenzies pop up while the team is trying to build positive momentum.

agreed, just pay him off and see the end of it

Yup. End it even if it costs 13m

RealGunner wrote:Yup. End it even if it costs we have 13m

The public outcry against the club that Ozil has caused by claiming that he has been treated with disloyalty is more cause than ever to jet this guy out of the club. This player has been mediocre for years now, he's washed up despite still having a good football brain, and he knew full well that he would not play any games for the club anymore before last season ended. He chose to stay here because he was collecting a fat, undeserved paycheque - and people forget that he refused to take a paycut when the rest of the squad did many months ago when we were hurting the most financially. He gives a lot to charity to paper over what he's really doing, but if you look through that, this guy is blatantly just trying to mooch money off of Arsenal even if it means the end of his playing career, and that is not the type of guy we as a club need at all.

I can't believe we have fans asking Arsenal to apologize to him and claiming that we'd be playing better if he was in the XI. Do people have no ability to think critically or recall how much he didn't pull his weight when he has played over the past few years? If we included him in our Europa League or PL squads, that would just mean that a more deserving, higher performing player would need to sit out

his fanboy cult is one of the weirder things going around at the moment, definitely

The club needs to provide clarity at this point (Even though they won't till he leaves)

But these kind of long drawn issues have been there since the decline of the Wenger era. No matter what, it's one big issue after another, direction keeps changing, toxic relationship with the fans (creating and sustaining the need for AFTV)

Every season, some unnecessary crap has to pop up and just derail everything. This kind of crap is going to take away any positivity that Arteta brought to the club, and he has other problems to deal with already.

Was it Moh or Turkish that complained about Ozil's wages after every game?

I get being frustrated that an elite footballer would appear to be more willing to collect their paycheck than play football elsewhere but Arsenal are entirely responsible for handing him that contract. He's completely entitled to do what he's doing.

We'll never know the exact details of how the paycut thing was handled but, again, that's a result of how Arsenal have mismanaged finances in recent years.

The media circus he stirs up with his social media antics is ugly and unwanted but the club are also doing their best to take their own shots at him.

Would love to see an end to the toxicity asap.

At the time of paycut, it was reported that there will be no redundancies of any non playing staff (I think it was part of the communication between players and administration). Ozil came out denying the paycut saying that he was not sure how was that money will be utilized etc. Later alot of staff was made to leave (scouts/mascot etc) which to some extent proves him right for not taking the paycut.

Ozil not being in the squad is down to the fact that we do not play a traditional 10, and we do not plan to play a 10 anytime soon as well which I think is very detrimental to our attacking threat. But until back 3 goes away it is what it is.

Conspiracy theory time: Ozil is not in the squad because him being in the squad stops Arsenal matchday coverage in china. Hence its the pressure of broadcasters as they were losing alot of money.

If Ozil had left, we arguably would not have had to cut so many staff, or we could have had greater financial resources in the transfer window and potentially went after Aouar more aggressively. His refusal to take a pay cut wasn’t standing up for anything but himself.

Regardless of the political climate and financial pressures, we have played so much better since we dropped him. He could be China’s most beloved player and he still wouldn’t deserve a spot in our squad over others. I respect everything he once did for us, I supported him and denied his decline for years, but the man’s time is up.

I don't get this what-about-ism of Özil taking a stand on Uiyghurs vs. Arsenal (and PL) supporting BLM. Where was Özil when millions of Rohingya muslims were being persecuted btw? Too busy playing football to notice, but has tons of time to kill now, innit?

Also, Uighurs vs BLM is apples and oranges. Systemic racism in established and supposedly developed global Western powers (the flagbearers of freedom and democracy, invading other countries to "free" their people from dictators) is not the same as suppresion (/almost cleansing!) of an ethnic minority in a sparesely populated region of communist state with an autocratic head of state. I am not saying one is lesser than the other, but it is easy to understand why institutions (government/corporate/social) are up in arms for one, while the other only receives fringe support from those who have nothing to lose (and not from big corporations depending on China, esp in times of Covid, for revenue and survival). But I digress.

Arsenal distancing themselves from his stand is what any company would do - let's not pretend that we are "only" a football club and stay disconnected from the contemporary business realities of the game. (Think VW - their CEO, Herbert Diess, was mobbed by journalists a few months back and he basically refused to comment or acknowledge Uighurs' troubles, while VW was setting up a plant in Xinjiang, and basically survived Covid thanks to sales in China).

I am sure his team had enough times to carefully word the statement because they knew he'd not be in the list. What he is doing is not dissimilar to what Usmanov and co. did when the boardroom was troubled, pandering to the dissatisfied fanbase and playing the underdog/saviour.

7 years later

The chapter ends

It may have been difficult last 2 years for him but he remains one of the most talented players to ever play for us. I am glad we all saw him in an Arsenal shirt. Shame how it ended

yea just glad to see the back of him by this point

Lets just hope that Artetta and the rest of the dead weight follow him.

6unner wrote:Lets just hope that Artetta and the rest of the dead weight follow him.

I'd give Arteta a chance after the deadwood is cleared. If he still fails after managing a considerably fresh squad then yea i hope we get someone else in

End of an era

One of my all time favourite players
Thanks for the memories

He was magnificent for us whenever he played on his peak, a lot of great memories and Wengerball magic.

I don't know why his agent waited this long to reveal this, but I'm glad he did because his client was portrayed by the media and Arsenal as the bad guy in this story whereas in reality it's them.

It's his agent. He will be biased.

Monreal recently said how Ozil fell out with Wenger towards the end of his career. That's ARSENE WENGER. Even the likes of RVP, Cesc, Nasri who all snaked out didn't have a falling out with him.

After that ozil had a falling out with Ljunberg, Emery and Arteta. previously with Mourinho and Carlo.

Isn't he also has some problems going on with Fenerbache? This guy is irl free agent lol. No country for Ozil man.

yea he is just one of those dudes that is a walking problem... a drama queen basically

I watched this, it was quite interesting and sure the agent played him like a god. What do you Arsenal fans think? Grass isn't that green?

One of my favorite players but Arteta was right to omit him from the team,in fact terrible decision to give him new contract which was way before Arteta anyway