BAK
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Unaona eeh! siku hizi Wapenzi wa hii kitu tunaangalia hizi mechi tayari tukiwa na matokeo ambayo tunayataka kwa kuangalia nafasi za timu zetu.
Arsenal (The Gunners) | Special Thread
Arsenal (The Gunners) | Special Thread
- Thread starter Game Theory
- Start date
BAK
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 11, 2007
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Hahahahaha lol! unajua kuna watu wana asili ya kupendwa hata kama huwapendi huko waliko unawafurahia kila wanapofanikiwa. Ila Beckham ni mstaarabu sana jamaa yule na aliniudhi mno kwa kuamua kukaa kimya pale SAF alipompiga na kiatu usoni, hakustahili kuuzwa ila SAF na wivu wake.
BAK
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- Feb 11, 2007
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This is my time, we're choking again at a very crucial time.
Arsenal: Are Arsene Wenger's side spurning title chance again?
By Phil McNulty
Chief football writer
Read more about sharing.
Arsene Wenger's Arsenal have now lost two on the bounce having led both games
It was the chant Arsenal's supporters used as a signal of their superiority - a song designed to demoralise opponents in the years when silverware was a common currency.
"One-nil to The Arsenal" carried an ominous tone when the teams managed by George Graham and Arsene Wenger were at the height of their powers and the titles rolled in for the Gunners.
It was turned back on Arsenal in mocking tones by Manchester City's supporters at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday as for the second time in a week that once-famous advantage was transformed into a damaging defeat.
Arsenal have led by that single goal at Everton and Manchester City before losing 2-1, overpowered and outflanked in both games in a manner that had alarm bells ringing for those who saw familiar flaws being exposed.
So has this last week proved that the early season optimism was only another false dawn for Arsenal and Wenger, or is this simply a stumble?
Same old Arsenal?
Offside decisions difficult to accept - Wenger
Arsenal's weakness under pressure, first at a thunderous Goodison Park on Tuesday and again in the face of a Manchester City side that was simply too intense and talented for them to resist, was something that was supposed to have been cured this season.
And, in Arsenal's defence, there had been promising signs that the obvious soft underbelly that has undermined them in recent seasons had been cured at times this term.
Arsenal were poor at Manchester United on 19 November but hung in and earned a point they did not merit when Olivier Giroud equalised late on. It was the sort of the game they had lost on many other occasions.
And it was only a fortnight ago that Arsenal were being lauded for a stylish, ruthless demolition of West Ham United at the London Stadium, a performance many felt carried the hallmark of potential champions.
The loss at Everton was their first in the Premier League this season since the opening day defeat at home to Liverpool, and in that spell was a 3-0 beating of current leaders Chelsea that was so comprehensive that it convinced Antonio Conte he had to reshape tactically, with staggeringly successful results and 11 straight league wins.
It was an impressive 14-game sequence for Arsenal.
In mitigating circumstances, they have also lost Shkodran Mustafi to a hamstring injury. The Germany central defender has proved an excellent signing since arriving from Valencia in the summer, adding genuine defensive backbone in partnership with Laurent Koscielny.
The last time they suffered back-to-back Premier League defeats was in March 2016 against Manchester United and Swansea City. The last time they suffered back-to-back Premier League defeats away from home was in April 2014 at Chelsea and Everton.
And yet. And yet.
The question Arsenal have failed to answer on so many occasions since "The Invincibles" went 38 games unbeaten to win their last title in 2003-04 is - could they stand it when the heat was on, when the physical and mental pressures were at their height?
At Everton and Manchester City they looked in control at half-time, less so at the Etihad perhaps, and twice they have become unsettled and eventually beaten by teams who have applied sustained pressure.
When it came to the pressure points, Arsenal were brittle and cracked. They have been fragile before and now need to produce hard evidence very swiftly that this is merely a temporary state of affairs and not a revisiting of damaging old habits that refuse to die.
Arsenal looked tired. They were subjected to a fierce physical test at Everton on Tuesday, but every other title contender has been playing this week and they quite simply have to meet these demands if they wish to end that title drought, irrespective of the fact they have Champions League football to factor in where the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool have no European commitments.
Once Manchester City went ahead there was, from an Arsenal perspective, a grim inevitability about the outcome. And, most worryingly of all for Wenger, it seemed like mentally his players knew it.
This talented team has been betrayed by its Jekyll and Hyde nature under Wenger for years and these last two games will have raised all the old questions and doubts.
In the 12 seasons since Arsenal last won the title, in only two of those campaigns has the margin between the Gunners and the champions been in single figures. Twice the gap has been more than 20 points - so a systematic pattern has emerged rather than an extended hard luck story.
The gap to Chelsea is already nine points. Arsenal now have home games coming up against West Bromwich Albion and Crystal Palace. They cannot allow it to get any wider.
Where was Mesut Ozil?
Mesut Ozil's performances have come under the spotlight this week
Mesut Ozil is a graceful creator. He can make and score goals and influence games - but when Arsenal needed him as the chips were down at Everton and Manchester City, he went missing.
At Goodison Park, he carelessly squandered a potentially decisive chance when the score was 1-1, and when Ashley Williams powered in to head Everton's late winner, Ozil was heavily criticised for turning away from the challenge, appearing to flinch as the defender charged in.
And at Manchester City, when Arsenal were struggling to gain any foothold and their defence was being placed under constant examination, Ozil's presence could best be described as peripheral. He was on the margins rather than a vital outlet.
Ozil is used by Arsenal's critics, with justification, as the embodiment of the problems that always let them down. He flourishes when the sun is shining but takes shelter when it starts to rain.
As Kevin de Bruyne stepped forward to take the responsibility vacated by the suspended Sergio Aguero, Ozil failed to fill in as Arsenal's other stellar performer, Alexis Sanchez, tired visibly and was starved of service in the second half.
Ozil won only 25% of his personal duels against City, lost the ball 14 times and played just one key pass, where that is rated as a pass that assists an attempt on goal.
The final straw of Arsenal's frustration was a last-minute free-kick mix-up between Ozil and keeper Petr Cech that saw a short ball played rather than the obvious launch into the penalty area.
With that he was gone, down the tunnel and with nothing to strengthen his hand in current lucrative contract negotiations with Arsenal. The serious clubs will look at his performances this week and question whether he has got it in his locker to add to their elite resources.
Ozil has a rare talent that cannot be denied. But on these occasions, like Arsenal, it is also flawed.
Wenger aims anger at ref again
Everton manager Ronald Koeman did not spare Wenger's feelings after he complained that referee Mark Clattenburg's performance played a part in their loss at Goodison Park.
He was particularly annoyed by a marginal decision on the corner which led to Everton's winning goal.
Koeman, whose Southampton team beat Arsenal 4-0 at St Mary's last season, said: "I am not surprised by Wenger and his comments. It is the third home game in a row that I have won against Arsenal and three times it was about the referee."
It was the same story at the Etihad Stadium as he turned his ire on referee Martin Atkinson and his officials as Leroy Sane looked barely an inch offside for City's equaliser and Wenger complained David Silva was offside in front of Cech for Raheem Sterling's winner, although it is questionable whether he was hindering the keeper.
Wenger said: "It is very difficult to accept in a game of that stature but, as it is well known, the referees are protected very well like lions in the zoo, so we have to live with those decisions."
Wenger's complaints may be valid, but history suggests it is rather more than errors by officialdom that have been behind their succession of failures to mount a title challenge.
In Wenger's defence, it is only two defeats and the season has only reached December - the problem is that that table will now tell him and Arsenal they will need something akin to a four-game swing to pass, for one, Chelsea while they go on an extended run of success.
After this week, and the manner of Arsenal's defeats, it is an equation that would test even Wenger's endless optimism to the limit.
Arsenal: Are Arsene Wenger's side spurning title chance again?
By Phil McNulty
Chief football writer
- 18 Dec
Read more about sharing.
Arsene Wenger's Arsenal have now lost two on the bounce having led both games
It was the chant Arsenal's supporters used as a signal of their superiority - a song designed to demoralise opponents in the years when silverware was a common currency.
"One-nil to The Arsenal" carried an ominous tone when the teams managed by George Graham and Arsene Wenger were at the height of their powers and the titles rolled in for the Gunners.
It was turned back on Arsenal in mocking tones by Manchester City's supporters at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday as for the second time in a week that once-famous advantage was transformed into a damaging defeat.
Arsenal have led by that single goal at Everton and Manchester City before losing 2-1, overpowered and outflanked in both games in a manner that had alarm bells ringing for those who saw familiar flaws being exposed.
So has this last week proved that the early season optimism was only another false dawn for Arsenal and Wenger, or is this simply a stumble?
Same old Arsenal?
Offside decisions difficult to accept - Wenger
Arsenal's weakness under pressure, first at a thunderous Goodison Park on Tuesday and again in the face of a Manchester City side that was simply too intense and talented for them to resist, was something that was supposed to have been cured this season.
And, in Arsenal's defence, there had been promising signs that the obvious soft underbelly that has undermined them in recent seasons had been cured at times this term.
Arsenal were poor at Manchester United on 19 November but hung in and earned a point they did not merit when Olivier Giroud equalised late on. It was the sort of the game they had lost on many other occasions.
And it was only a fortnight ago that Arsenal were being lauded for a stylish, ruthless demolition of West Ham United at the London Stadium, a performance many felt carried the hallmark of potential champions.
The loss at Everton was their first in the Premier League this season since the opening day defeat at home to Liverpool, and in that spell was a 3-0 beating of current leaders Chelsea that was so comprehensive that it convinced Antonio Conte he had to reshape tactically, with staggeringly successful results and 11 straight league wins.
It was an impressive 14-game sequence for Arsenal.
In mitigating circumstances, they have also lost Shkodran Mustafi to a hamstring injury. The Germany central defender has proved an excellent signing since arriving from Valencia in the summer, adding genuine defensive backbone in partnership with Laurent Koscielny.
The last time they suffered back-to-back Premier League defeats was in March 2016 against Manchester United and Swansea City. The last time they suffered back-to-back Premier League defeats away from home was in April 2014 at Chelsea and Everton.
And yet. And yet.
The question Arsenal have failed to answer on so many occasions since "The Invincibles" went 38 games unbeaten to win their last title in 2003-04 is - could they stand it when the heat was on, when the physical and mental pressures were at their height?
At Everton and Manchester City they looked in control at half-time, less so at the Etihad perhaps, and twice they have become unsettled and eventually beaten by teams who have applied sustained pressure.
When it came to the pressure points, Arsenal were brittle and cracked. They have been fragile before and now need to produce hard evidence very swiftly that this is merely a temporary state of affairs and not a revisiting of damaging old habits that refuse to die.
Arsenal looked tired. They were subjected to a fierce physical test at Everton on Tuesday, but every other title contender has been playing this week and they quite simply have to meet these demands if they wish to end that title drought, irrespective of the fact they have Champions League football to factor in where the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool have no European commitments.
Once Manchester City went ahead there was, from an Arsenal perspective, a grim inevitability about the outcome. And, most worryingly of all for Wenger, it seemed like mentally his players knew it.
This talented team has been betrayed by its Jekyll and Hyde nature under Wenger for years and these last two games will have raised all the old questions and doubts.
In the 12 seasons since Arsenal last won the title, in only two of those campaigns has the margin between the Gunners and the champions been in single figures. Twice the gap has been more than 20 points - so a systematic pattern has emerged rather than an extended hard luck story.
The gap to Chelsea is already nine points. Arsenal now have home games coming up against West Bromwich Albion and Crystal Palace. They cannot allow it to get any wider.
Where was Mesut Ozil?
Mesut Ozil's performances have come under the spotlight this week
Mesut Ozil is a graceful creator. He can make and score goals and influence games - but when Arsenal needed him as the chips were down at Everton and Manchester City, he went missing.
At Goodison Park, he carelessly squandered a potentially decisive chance when the score was 1-1, and when Ashley Williams powered in to head Everton's late winner, Ozil was heavily criticised for turning away from the challenge, appearing to flinch as the defender charged in.
And at Manchester City, when Arsenal were struggling to gain any foothold and their defence was being placed under constant examination, Ozil's presence could best be described as peripheral. He was on the margins rather than a vital outlet.
Ozil is used by Arsenal's critics, with justification, as the embodiment of the problems that always let them down. He flourishes when the sun is shining but takes shelter when it starts to rain.
As Kevin de Bruyne stepped forward to take the responsibility vacated by the suspended Sergio Aguero, Ozil failed to fill in as Arsenal's other stellar performer, Alexis Sanchez, tired visibly and was starved of service in the second half.
Ozil won only 25% of his personal duels against City, lost the ball 14 times and played just one key pass, where that is rated as a pass that assists an attempt on goal.
The final straw of Arsenal's frustration was a last-minute free-kick mix-up between Ozil and keeper Petr Cech that saw a short ball played rather than the obvious launch into the penalty area.
With that he was gone, down the tunnel and with nothing to strengthen his hand in current lucrative contract negotiations with Arsenal. The serious clubs will look at his performances this week and question whether he has got it in his locker to add to their elite resources.
Ozil has a rare talent that cannot be denied. But on these occasions, like Arsenal, it is also flawed.
Wenger aims anger at ref again
Everton manager Ronald Koeman did not spare Wenger's feelings after he complained that referee Mark Clattenburg's performance played a part in their loss at Goodison Park.
He was particularly annoyed by a marginal decision on the corner which led to Everton's winning goal.
Koeman, whose Southampton team beat Arsenal 4-0 at St Mary's last season, said: "I am not surprised by Wenger and his comments. It is the third home game in a row that I have won against Arsenal and three times it was about the referee."
It was the same story at the Etihad Stadium as he turned his ire on referee Martin Atkinson and his officials as Leroy Sane looked barely an inch offside for City's equaliser and Wenger complained David Silva was offside in front of Cech for Raheem Sterling's winner, although it is questionable whether he was hindering the keeper.
Wenger said: "It is very difficult to accept in a game of that stature but, as it is well known, the referees are protected very well like lions in the zoo, so we have to live with those decisions."
Wenger's complaints may be valid, but history suggests it is rather more than errors by officialdom that have been behind their succession of failures to mount a title challenge.
In Wenger's defence, it is only two defeats and the season has only reached December - the problem is that that table will now tell him and Arsenal they will need something akin to a four-game swing to pass, for one, Chelsea while they go on an extended run of success.
After this week, and the manner of Arsenal's defeats, it is an equation that would test even Wenger's endless optimism to the limit.
Kwa kweli siyo rahisi kufurahia anguko la timu yako..... anyway hilo ni chaguo lako inabidi ulikubali tu..... huku kuna kawimbo fulani kanaimbwa kwenye harusi kanasema hilo ni chaguo lako.....hata kama ni mfupi hilo ni chaguo lako.....kwa leo naomba na mimi nikuimbie juu ya Wenger....
hata kama hana mipango.ni chaguo lenu...
Hata kama ni wa nne kila mwaka ....ni chaguo lenu.
Lol!! Sikupanga kukuumiza my deardont bother...... jana nimekusubiri nikupe mahabat hata hukuja huyu Wenger hata siyo mtu mzuri kabisa!
Hata kama ni wa nne kila mwaka ....ni chaguo lenu.
dont bother...... jana nimekusubiri nikupe mahabat hata hukuja huyu Wenger hata siyo mtu mzuri kabisa!
BAK
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 11, 2007
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Pamoja na kuwa nilikuwa siwapendi lakini nilikuwa napanga shughuli zangu ili nipate muda wa saa moja na nusu kufuatilia yaliyojiri. Na 90 minutes zikikatika moyo na akili zimesuuzika kwa kuona kandanda la hali ya juu pamoja na kuwa siwapendi.
Wacha1
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- Dec 21, 2009
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Upo mkuu, Hongreni kwa ushindi wa jana .. ....
BAK
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 11, 2007
- 124,769
- 288,283
Mesut Özil, the ghost in Arsenal’s machine, picks bad time for wan game
Mesut Özil, the ghost in Arsenal’s machine, picks bad time for wan game
With talk of Mesut Özil demanding a huge new contract, his pale performance in Arsenal’s defeat at City will have Arsène Wenger wondering if he is worth it
Mesut Özil looks dejected after the final whistle in Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester City in the Premier League. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images
Mesut Özil, the ghost in Arsenal’s machine, picks bad time for wan game
Barney Ronay
With talk of Mesut Özil demanding a huge new contract, his pale performance in Arsenal’s defeat at City will have Arsène Wenger wondering if he is worth it
Monday 19 December 2016 19.58 GMT
Comments
157
There was an interesting moment at the end of Arsenal’s defeat at Manchester City on Sunday, a match of shifting tides, foggy passages, moments of extreme skill and one decisive tactical switch by Pep Guardiola. Deep into stoppage time, as Petr Cech and the nearest team‑mate dithered over a free-kick by the halfway line Arsène Wenger could be seen leaping up and urging them to get the ball forward, waggling his arms about in that familiar, slightly alarming angry‑pterodactyl style.
Eventually the ball did go forward, just as the final whistle was blown. Wenger stormed back from the touchline, visibly frustrated, turning his back on the yellow shirts closest to him. It felt significant, intentionally or not, that the other player with Cech at the end was Mesut Özil.
The German remains Wenger’s pet creative genius, a player in whom he has invested huge amounts of patience and reputational points, but Özil was once again an absence at the Etihad Stadium. Aged 28 and now foraging after a bumper new contract, Arsenal’s record signing is surely treading close to the point where even a fond and indulgent manager may start to feel that a beguiling, at times frustrating three years is reaching a point of crisis.
Yes: it’s that Özil conversation. Bring it on. Let’s do this here and now. Although hopefully without the associated mulch of cliché and received ideas, the identity politics of English football that seems to attach itself to any discussion of a genuinely interesting, genuinely alluring footballer.
It is surely obvious by now that nobody seriously expects Özil to “drive” a game on like some elfin Roy Keane or Bryan Robson reimagined as Victorian garden sprite. To criticise Özil for his lack of bite in the tackle, his absence of biceps, the failure to wear a white conical bandage around his head is simply to miss the best of him.
Against this there is a counter‑orthodoxy that suggests criticising Özil is to declare yourself unworthy of his minutely calibrated artisanal brilliance, eyes boggling as he gazes into the shadow world – the ghost passes, the invisible angles – like some frail alien princeling wheeled out to take us beyond our human plane into the footballing nether.
The fact remains he is a lovely footballer, and a committed one too who runs a great deal more than some seem to think (10km more than any other Arsenal midfielder in the Champions League this season). His worth does not lie simply in assists and goals scored. Özil works the fringes, finds passes that make the passes, manages Arsenal’s transitions from defence and generally acts as a high-grade lubricant.
It is, though, still possible to put a measuring stick on all this, just as pretty soon Wenger himself will have to make a significant call on a player who has been a genuine treat even for the Premier League neutral. Özil, or rather the industrial-Özil complex around him, are currently forcing this. There is talk of £290,000-a-week salary demands in any new Arsenal deal, more than double his current contract. It would be a huge pay rise, elevating Özil to genuine A-list status. Two things occur instantly.
First, there is little in Özil’s recent club football that suggests he deserves it. And secondly, it is hard not to conclude such game-changing money would be better spent elsewhere. Arsenal could, for example, try to sign Riyad Mahrez, who is younger and more obviously effective and may just be gettable. Özil is fun, brilliant, maddening at times. But judged by any serious scale of actual impact on this, the earthly realm – where goals and wins and trophies really do exist – there is nothing to justify such extreme demands.
Three seasons and two FA Cup winner’s medals into his Arsenal career Özil isn’t showing any obvious signs of other gears, of a level still to come. He faded with the rest last season as the best chance in a decade to win the league title disappeared, and has been present through the galling Champions League defeats of the last few years.
Özil was supposed to define the endgame of the late Wenger years. And so he has, an emblem of room-temperature stasis, a certain debilitating cosiness. Wenger has been criticised since the defeat at the Etihad for failing to react in real-time, to shift his tactics to mirror Guardiola’s successful rejig into a system with two No10s and David Silva sniping behind. There is no shame in being out-tacticed now and then. But when all this was going on where was Wenger’s senior player, Arsenal’s only World Cup winner on the pitch?
Arsenal fans have become accustomed to shrugging a little at this point and saying, well, it just wasn’t Özil’s game, treating him with the special privileges reserved for some impossibly complex high-spec part in an over-engineered luxury car: the fine-tooth alternator-flange that makes the multi-jet trans-drive work, but which can quite easily be thrown by too much fluff in the rear transponders or, you know, a leaf on the windscreen.
But this isn’t really enough. When your good moments are as good as Özil’s it is easy to overlook the omissions. If we really are going to start talking Messi-level wages there are still quite a few things Özil doesn’t do. Such as kicking the ball with his right foot, always a baffling omission in a top footballer. His finishing can be ropey. In his entire Arsenal career Özil has one goal from outside the box. Being able to shoot seems the least you’d expect for £15m a year. Last season Özil won three headers in the Premier League. So far this time he’s made 11 tackles. Nobody hires Mesut Özil to do either of these things. But there is a kind of entry-level expectation.
Even more so as the game has changed recently. Kevin De Bruyne is an obvious point of comparison, another high-grade northern European No10, but a player who is relentlessly involved even on his off-days. Against Arsenal De Bruyne looked a little muddled in the first half. He kept on running and harrying. He ended up producing the pass of the game to help Raheem Sterling score the winner. The previous weekend against Manchester City Mahrez had even fewer touches than Özil but still decided the match. In the high-speed, high-turnover press of the current Premier League it’s not enough to have off and on games. The day is always there to be seized.
Similarly Arsenal’s switch to playing more without the ball hasn’t brought the best from Özil. Suddenly you notice how little he contributes out of possession, an ambling ghost while those around him press and fill. The days of possession football, where it is enough simply to link and prompt and feed endless high-grade passes the way of some elite centre-forward, are largely gone.
There have of course been some real highs, and hopefully there will be more. Özil was excellent in the 3-0 defeat of Chelsea in the autumn, a result that seems now to have catapulted one of those teams towards a league title. Although not perhaps the one you might have expected. He was there for both of the wins against the current champions last season. But on too many other occasions, and once again on Sunday, Arsenal have struggled against better opponents, not helped by the additional burden of ferrying Özil about the pitch in his imperial litter, waiting for him to do stuff.
Already any serious Arsenal title challenge looks to have faded. In each of the past three seasons opponents energised by some spurting, sparking piece of managerial chemistry have sprinted away around this time of year while Arsenal have still been making plans. Wenger was genuinely upset at the end of Sunday’s defeat, an encouraging sign in itself. At the very least Arsenal’s season might benefit from a little more in the way of tension between a sympathetic manager and a star player who, in every sense, too often seems to leave no shadow.
Mesut Özil, the ghost in Arsenal’s machine, picks bad time for wan game
With talk of Mesut Özil demanding a huge new contract, his pale performance in Arsenal’s defeat at City will have Arsène Wenger wondering if he is worth it
Mesut Özil looks dejected after the final whistle in Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester City in the Premier League. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images
Mesut Özil, the ghost in Arsenal’s machine, picks bad time for wan game
Barney Ronay
With talk of Mesut Özil demanding a huge new contract, his pale performance in Arsenal’s defeat at City will have Arsène Wenger wondering if he is worth it
Monday 19 December 2016 19.58 GMT
Comments
157
There was an interesting moment at the end of Arsenal’s defeat at Manchester City on Sunday, a match of shifting tides, foggy passages, moments of extreme skill and one decisive tactical switch by Pep Guardiola. Deep into stoppage time, as Petr Cech and the nearest team‑mate dithered over a free-kick by the halfway line Arsène Wenger could be seen leaping up and urging them to get the ball forward, waggling his arms about in that familiar, slightly alarming angry‑pterodactyl style.
Eventually the ball did go forward, just as the final whistle was blown. Wenger stormed back from the touchline, visibly frustrated, turning his back on the yellow shirts closest to him. It felt significant, intentionally or not, that the other player with Cech at the end was Mesut Özil.
The German remains Wenger’s pet creative genius, a player in whom he has invested huge amounts of patience and reputational points, but Özil was once again an absence at the Etihad Stadium. Aged 28 and now foraging after a bumper new contract, Arsenal’s record signing is surely treading close to the point where even a fond and indulgent manager may start to feel that a beguiling, at times frustrating three years is reaching a point of crisis.
Yes: it’s that Özil conversation. Bring it on. Let’s do this here and now. Although hopefully without the associated mulch of cliché and received ideas, the identity politics of English football that seems to attach itself to any discussion of a genuinely interesting, genuinely alluring footballer.
It is surely obvious by now that nobody seriously expects Özil to “drive” a game on like some elfin Roy Keane or Bryan Robson reimagined as Victorian garden sprite. To criticise Özil for his lack of bite in the tackle, his absence of biceps, the failure to wear a white conical bandage around his head is simply to miss the best of him.
Against this there is a counter‑orthodoxy that suggests criticising Özil is to declare yourself unworthy of his minutely calibrated artisanal brilliance, eyes boggling as he gazes into the shadow world – the ghost passes, the invisible angles – like some frail alien princeling wheeled out to take us beyond our human plane into the footballing nether.
The fact remains he is a lovely footballer, and a committed one too who runs a great deal more than some seem to think (10km more than any other Arsenal midfielder in the Champions League this season). His worth does not lie simply in assists and goals scored. Özil works the fringes, finds passes that make the passes, manages Arsenal’s transitions from defence and generally acts as a high-grade lubricant.
It is, though, still possible to put a measuring stick on all this, just as pretty soon Wenger himself will have to make a significant call on a player who has been a genuine treat even for the Premier League neutral. Özil, or rather the industrial-Özil complex around him, are currently forcing this. There is talk of £290,000-a-week salary demands in any new Arsenal deal, more than double his current contract. It would be a huge pay rise, elevating Özil to genuine A-list status. Two things occur instantly.
First, there is little in Özil’s recent club football that suggests he deserves it. And secondly, it is hard not to conclude such game-changing money would be better spent elsewhere. Arsenal could, for example, try to sign Riyad Mahrez, who is younger and more obviously effective and may just be gettable. Özil is fun, brilliant, maddening at times. But judged by any serious scale of actual impact on this, the earthly realm – where goals and wins and trophies really do exist – there is nothing to justify such extreme demands.
Three seasons and two FA Cup winner’s medals into his Arsenal career Özil isn’t showing any obvious signs of other gears, of a level still to come. He faded with the rest last season as the best chance in a decade to win the league title disappeared, and has been present through the galling Champions League defeats of the last few years.
Özil was supposed to define the endgame of the late Wenger years. And so he has, an emblem of room-temperature stasis, a certain debilitating cosiness. Wenger has been criticised since the defeat at the Etihad for failing to react in real-time, to shift his tactics to mirror Guardiola’s successful rejig into a system with two No10s and David Silva sniping behind. There is no shame in being out-tacticed now and then. But when all this was going on where was Wenger’s senior player, Arsenal’s only World Cup winner on the pitch?
Arsenal fans have become accustomed to shrugging a little at this point and saying, well, it just wasn’t Özil’s game, treating him with the special privileges reserved for some impossibly complex high-spec part in an over-engineered luxury car: the fine-tooth alternator-flange that makes the multi-jet trans-drive work, but which can quite easily be thrown by too much fluff in the rear transponders or, you know, a leaf on the windscreen.
But this isn’t really enough. When your good moments are as good as Özil’s it is easy to overlook the omissions. If we really are going to start talking Messi-level wages there are still quite a few things Özil doesn’t do. Such as kicking the ball with his right foot, always a baffling omission in a top footballer. His finishing can be ropey. In his entire Arsenal career Özil has one goal from outside the box. Being able to shoot seems the least you’d expect for £15m a year. Last season Özil won three headers in the Premier League. So far this time he’s made 11 tackles. Nobody hires Mesut Özil to do either of these things. But there is a kind of entry-level expectation.
Even more so as the game has changed recently. Kevin De Bruyne is an obvious point of comparison, another high-grade northern European No10, but a player who is relentlessly involved even on his off-days. Against Arsenal De Bruyne looked a little muddled in the first half. He kept on running and harrying. He ended up producing the pass of the game to help Raheem Sterling score the winner. The previous weekend against Manchester City Mahrez had even fewer touches than Özil but still decided the match. In the high-speed, high-turnover press of the current Premier League it’s not enough to have off and on games. The day is always there to be seized.
Similarly Arsenal’s switch to playing more without the ball hasn’t brought the best from Özil. Suddenly you notice how little he contributes out of possession, an ambling ghost while those around him press and fill. The days of possession football, where it is enough simply to link and prompt and feed endless high-grade passes the way of some elite centre-forward, are largely gone.
There have of course been some real highs, and hopefully there will be more. Özil was excellent in the 3-0 defeat of Chelsea in the autumn, a result that seems now to have catapulted one of those teams towards a league title. Although not perhaps the one you might have expected. He was there for both of the wins against the current champions last season. But on too many other occasions, and once again on Sunday, Arsenal have struggled against better opponents, not helped by the additional burden of ferrying Özil about the pitch in his imperial litter, waiting for him to do stuff.
Already any serious Arsenal title challenge looks to have faded. In each of the past three seasons opponents energised by some spurting, sparking piece of managerial chemistry have sprinted away around this time of year while Arsenal have still been making plans. Wenger was genuinely upset at the end of Sunday’s defeat, an encouraging sign in itself. At the very least Arsenal’s season might benefit from a little more in the way of tension between a sympathetic manager and a star player who, in every sense, too often seems to leave no shadow.
fablo can
JF-Expert Member
- May 25, 2016
- 1,222
- 1,267
Wacha 1 kheeee kheeee mbona mlivyokuwa mnafunga hamkuleta campaigns ya wenger in or out.
Tulia arsenal ni timu nzuri. January atakaa kileleni. Khe kheeeee
Salamander
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 7, 2012
- 28,536
- 15,751
UrbanGentleman
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 19, 2016
- 2,584
- 1,886
Another 1
Guasa Ambonii
JF-Expert Member
- Aug 13, 2015
- 8,545
- 10,296
Majirani bado mapema sana msikate tamaa ligi bado ngumu ila matatizo ya back line kweli yatawatesa sana.
MwafrikaHalisi
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 12, 2011
- 1,741
- 511
You guys never learn. This will never happen
Guasa Ambonii
JF-Expert Member
- Aug 13, 2015
- 8,545
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Duh! mashabiki wake huwa kuna kipindi siwaelewi nadhani wana imani ya mashaka kama ile hadithi ya kitoto waqt ule (urafiki wa mashaka )maana akishinda game tatu oooh bonge la kocha ila wakianza kuchezea kama hivi ndipo utawasikia "sasa imetosha atuachie timu yetu "wengine kuumia kwa mustafi ndio kayaleta haya basi tuwazoee tu ndugu zetu hawa.
UrbanGentleman
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 19, 2016
- 2,584
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Naenda likizo naitaji kufurahi na family yangu tarajiwa sio kwa stress hizi guys tusameheane kwa muda
Bavaria
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 14, 2011
- 53,092
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Zile shombo zako ulizokuwa unazitema kule jukwaani kwetu vipi?
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