Arsenal's Mesut Ozil millstone: the damning statistics two years on from bumper contract
There are certain issues and anomalies which, while lingering unresolved inside a football club, can eventually fester to the point of representing a millstone for all wider progress.
It was why Sir Alex Ferguson always moved with such ruthless speed to eliminate simmering problems or personalities, often even long before the outside world aware had sensed the danger. It is why it remains hard to imagine West Ham United realising their ambitions without thinking some fairly radical thoughts about their London Stadium home. It is also why Arsenal’s contract renegotiation for Mesut Ozil back in 2018 was among the most spectacularly bad decisions in recent Premier League history.
There was actually a time when Ozil was a polarising figure. His languid style meant that he always had his critics but there was sufficient wider contribution to at least ensure a debate. That period of fevered disagreement about his actual worth has come to represent the glory days in almost seven years at Arsenal.
For the period since he signed his new contract, which was almost two years ago to the day, has been so jaw-droppingly poor that even the biggest Ozil loyalist must accept the pitiful value for money.
The statistics are genuinely extraordinary. In 43 Premier League appearances since January 31, 2018 - when a lucrative contract extension until 2021 was agreed - Ozil has contributed five goals and four assists. That tally of nine direct goal contributions puts him 103rd in the Premier League list, 54 behind Mohamed Salah and more than 30 short of Harry Kane, Sadio Mane, Raheem Sterling, Jamie Vardy or Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. As the highest paid player in Arsenal’s history, on a reported £350,000 a week salary, this is exactly the sort of company that Ozil was supposed to keep.
As it is, the list of other players on nine goals or assists over the past two years is telling. Daniel James has already reached that level in half the games and around a quarter of the time. Jeffrey Schlupp, Steve Mounie, Harvey Baines, Junior Stanislas, Victor Camarasa, Neil Maupay and Bournemouth centre-back Nathan Ake are also there level with Ozil. Even more striking is that Virgil van Dijk’s goal yesterday against Manchester United means that he has actually scored or assisted one more than Ozil since Arsenal’s supposed creative catalyst got his new deal. Van Dijk has just possibly also offered rather more defensively.
Ozil was asked last week about his Arsenal future and declared himself “very pleased” with his contract and outlined a desire to see it out until the end of next season. With no prospect of any sensible club offering him anything like the same money, that was hardly surprising and the waste to Arsenal simply persists. Yes, Ozil may very well again produce some flickers of brilliance but just what more could Arsenal have done with that £350,000-a-week over these past two years? Van Dijk began on a basic £125,000 when he arrived at Liverpool in the very same transfer window in 2018. Salah had arrived the previous summer on £123,000.
Quite who decided Ozil was ever worth a new deal on this sort of money remains something of a mystery. It was the sort of deal we have come to associate with Ed Woodward at Manchester United. Arsene Wenger was still the manager but it was a moment when his power was draining and chief executive Ivan Gazidis and his own two new signings - Sven Mislintat and Huss Fahmy - were taking centre-stage. And was there ever a more Un-Wenger move than the decision to award not just one, but three players in Ozil, Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan such bumper contracts at ages when they would then all have such limited sell-on value?
The financial impact these last two years would be more palatable if there was any real sense that Ozil was delivering in some other leadership way. This can sometimes be sensed inside the post-match Mixed Zone; the area players walk through at the end of games and supposedly share their thoughts with the outside media. It was a place in which you would invariably hear people like Patrick Vieira, Vincent Kompany, Didier Drogba, John Terry, Petr Cech, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard front up, especially at important or difficult moments for their club.
In covering Arsenal regularly between Ozil’s arrival in 2013 and 2018, I never once heard him speak. It left you wondering how this disparity between on-field influence and off-field salary has gone down with other players and whether it was an indirect factor in the loss of Aaron Ramsey.
As well as those executives who sanctioned Ozil’s contract, some culpability must also rest with Unai Emery in inspiring quite so little from a player who was clearly going nowhere. It all now leaves Mikel Arteta trying to make the best of a bad situation. This early attempt to reestablish Ozil as a first-team regular represents an understandable last throw of the dice and there have been small signs of progress in recent weeks.
Some sort of renaissance cannot be completely ruled out and it would be genuinely wonderful to see a player of such class delivering consistently. The far more likely endgame, however, is that a hefty millstone will only be lifted next year when Arsenal can finally resume life without their most mercurial and ultimately disappointing of talents.
