Mesut Özil is often accused of not turning up for the big away games with Arsenal, even if many accept that at home and against the smaller teams he can take a team apart.

Unfortunately, it seems that Özil literally didn’t turn up for Sunday’s clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, as the result of an injury. However, looking at the matches he’s played so far, it doesn’t seem like playing home or away has made any difference.

In two home matches against Leicester and Bournemouth Özil covered 21.6km, according to the Daily Mail. Meanwhile, in two away matches against Stoke and Liverpool, Özil covered 21.6km.

So claims from pundits like Steven Gerrard that Özil doesn’t work enough in away games look a bit odd. Perhaps not enough of that running is done in defensive areas, but then in the current setup it’s not meant to be. Mesut is a wide-forward with eight players behind him.

In the old formation it was a slightly different situation. The German generally wasn’t part of the front three, instead sitting in behind as a number 10. That left more players ahead of Özil and fewer behind him, and more defensive responsibility as a result.

But that shouldn’t be the case now.

Of course, Özil’s goal scoring record against the big six sides only comes to about one goal every six matches, and an assist in just over a quarter of the games. So there’s more that could be done, but the team on the whole generally hasn’t been good enough in these matches.

Mesut can’t carry them alone, and in this case against Chelsea, he wasn’t able to carry them at all.