Nacho Monreal has confirmed what most of us suspected, that Mesut Özil’s supposed bust up with Unai Emery was invented by the media.

The German playmaker was ruled out of Arsenal’s game against West Ham United the week before last with illness. The club informed the media he was sent home on the advice of the club doctor, prescribed antibiotics to help with a case of laryngitis, and attended the West Ham match as a spectator.

However, most of them ran a story about Özil falling out with Emery instead, presumably because that made for more interesting headlines. Monreal has confirmed there was nothing in the rumours.

“People have been a bit unfair with him,” Monreal began. “He is a very famous player and obviously people love talking about him. Recently, it is always bad things. Like last time, he was sick and that’s why he didn’t play. 

“People started to invent that he had a problem with the manager. It wasn’t like that. He got a cold, he was sick, that’s it. That’s why he didn’t play.”

The Spaniard also jumped to his teammate’s defence when it comes to Özil’s on-pitch persona. Pundits and ex-players are always calling for the playmaker to show more passion, but Monreal insists that’s just the midfielder’s nature.

“People must understand that every player is completely different,” he said. “He is like that [quiet] and 10 years ago he was the same. So you can’t expect on the pitch that he starts to fight, to talk with the referee because he never did it. He is not going to change in this case. 

“The important thing is he plays at his highest level, gives a lot of assists, scores a lot of goals and basically helps the team. That’s what he knows. He doesn’t know how to go up to a player and grab him by the throat.”

Emery tried to sign Özil at PSG

Back in January, reports suggest Emery personally tried to convince Özil to leave Arsenal for Paris Saint-Germain, reportedly holding a face-to-face meeting with him. In the end, the move didn’t go through, as Özil decided to renew his contract in North London, but it worked out for Emery anyway as he then joined the club himself.

Clearly the new head coach rates the player, so it would be bizarre to make an enemy of him so soon after arriving.

Hopefully that should put to bed all the nonsense about a potential falling out between the two. They both know the truth of the matter, so it doesn’t really matter how much the media try to make a circus out of nothing.