Mesut Ozil has reportedly been offered around Italy as the club look to sell him during the January window.
According to TuttoJuve Arsenal have offered the German to Inter Milan and Juventus as they look to move him on due to Unai Emery’s problem with him, whatever that might be.
The main issue, of course, is that he is on ridiculously stupid wages that no club is going to entertain matching unless they get him for a transfer fee close to nothing. Letting him leave for that would make a mockery of getting him to sign a new deal in the first place.
12 months ago we all wondered if Mesut Ozil would still be an Arsenal player in 2018.
After being made the club’s highest ever paid player, the men who sanctioned Ozil’s latest contract are gone from the club and the German keeps vanishing.
Unai Emery has been as frank as he seems capable of being when he said he expects Ozil to work harder. We can read nothing into Emery making Ozil one of his five captains because he did the same with Aaron Ramsey whom we all know is set for a summer exit.
Arsenal need to cut their wage bill – that’s why they are letting Ramsey go. Any new deal for the Welshman would come with a hefty increase on his weekly salary while a large signing-on bonus is also required. The club can’t afford it.
Can they, then, afford to pay Ozil £350,000-per-week for the next 128 weeks?
Of course, questions need to be asked about why the club sanctioned the deal in the first place if they were not prepared to commit to it for its duration or if they knew they couldn’t afford it.
Desperation seems the obvious answer given the state of the club at the time, the unrest amongst fans and the fact that Alexis Sanchez was off to Manchester United.
They could afford to lose Ozil last January less than they could afford his wages it seems. Arsene Wenger’s last hurrah in his attempts to turn things around and get the fans back on side.
Moving Ozil up to the £300kpw bracket has reduced the number of clubs now able to pay his wages to around five (Manchester United, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG). From that list perhaps only one or two would consider signing him at that price (United and PSG).
In short, if Arsenal weren’t intending on keeping him, they’ve made it very difficult to get rid.