He's becoming their new Ozil: Arteta must axe "frustrating" Arsenal ace
da bwin： It might be over two decades since they won the Premier League, but Arsenal have had some sensational players represent them since then.
da winzada777： The likes of Cesc Fàbregas, Robin van Persie, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang and Alexis Sánchez were all near enough unstoppable on their day, even if they couldn’t deliver the club the biggest prizes.
However, perhaps the star who felt most likely to drag the North Londoners back to the pinnacle when he arrived was Mesut Özil.
The German playmaker was an unreal talent, but unfortunately, his Arsenal career fizzled out into nothingness, and now there’s a player in the current squad in danger of having the same happen to him.
Ozil's Arsenal career
On transfer deadline day 2013, Arsenal announced the shock £42.4m signing of Ozil – to fan delirium – and there was a level of hope that the former Real Madrid superstar would be the one to bring the glory years back to N5.
For the first few seasons, while there was no league title or European glory, the World Cup winner certainly delivered on his end of the bargain, racking up 61 goal involvements in his first three seasons and helping the club win some FA Cups.
However, as time passed, and especially after signing a new £350k-per-week contract, the former Werder Bremen gem seemed to become less and less effective.
In fact, once Arteta was appointed manager in 2019, the German superstar eventually saw himself frozen out of the team entirely, with fans and pundits alike lambasting his apparent lack of effort off the ball.
Eventually, after over a year of barely playing for the club, he left for Fenerbahçe for free in January 2021.
Ozil remains a popular figure with much of the fanbase today and left with an impressive tally of 44 goals and 75 assists in 254 appearances, but there is no denying that he left the club failing to achieve what many thought he would, and on a low rather than a high.
Unfortunately, a current Arsenal player might be falling down the same path this season, a player the boss should look to drop from the starting lineup for some time.
The Arsenal star emulating Ozil
On the back of Tuesday night’s defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, it would be easy to lambast the entire starting lineup for not playing well enough, but in retrospect, it wasn’t quite the battering some may try to portray it as.
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Arsenal had their chances to score, and for much of the game, the likes of Declan Rice, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Bukayo Saka and David Raya did their jobs.
However, there was one starter who was as bad as everyone initially said: Martin Odegaard, who was anonymous at best and actively ruining attacks at worst.
The Norwegian fully deserved the 4/10 match rating he received from the Independent’s Jamie Braidwood, and the worrying thing is that it wasn’t a massively surprising performance either.
Yes, even though he picked up his second successive Player of the Year Award last season, the “frustrating” playmaker, as dubbed by podcaster Rohan Jivan, has been seriously poor all season, and as content creator Rimedi pointed out earlier this year, he’s just “not at the level.”
In all, the player who is supposed to be the team’s creative hub has amassed just 15 goal involvements in 39 games this season, which is undeniably underwhelming and feels eerily similar to Ozil’s slow decline.
As this collapse in form is showing no signs of reversing, Arteta should take him out of the team for the next game at least and start Ethan Nwaneri in the middle of the park, as he looked more likely to make something happen in just five minutes of action on Tuesday.
Odegaard’s 24/25
Appearances
39
Minutes
2982′
Goals
5
Assists
10
Goal Involvements per Match
0.38
Minutes per Goal Involvement
198.8′
All Stats via Transfermarkt
Ultimately, Odegaard is an incredibly talented player, but at the moment, he is not showing it, and therefore, he should be dropped and given time to figure out what’s going wrong, lest his Arsenal career end the same way Ozil’s did.
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