Ian Wright has spoken out against criticism over Mesut Ozil following his performance versus Stoke last Saturday.
Ozil can’t seem to do anything right. Even when he’s creating chances for players and looking frustrated that he’s struggling to make a real impact on a game, he’s slated. And Wrighty, for one, is getting rather annoyed with it.
“What, the one that’s already created 10 chances for his teammates when he’s supposed to be having a nightmare? Because he looks frustrated when he loses the ball or something happens?,” the ex-striker said.
“If I’m Arsene Wenger, I’m saying ‘When he gets the ball, I just want you to back him up, and if he loses it you get it back and give it back to him to let him get on with it again.
“Because some players you have to give them the licence to do that. The stick he gets, it really annoys me, it jars me.
“I believe he [Ozil] is somebody who should have even more licence to do what he wants. He’s a creative player, he’s not going to start running back and tackling people. They can utilise him better.”
Let’s get one thing straight here. No one was particularly fantastic against Stoke. However, a handful of refereeing decisions didn’t go Arsenal’s way and they were far from the car crash some people painted them as.
Ozil, despite being once again used as a scapegoat after the 1-0 defeat, even by former Arsenal players, created four chances, completed 92/99 passes (93%), had two shots, one of which was blocked, and took four corners with a 75% success rate.
The only Arsenal player who had a better pass rate was Theo Walcott and that’s because the forward came on as a sub and only got the chance to attempt three!
On Who Scored, the German was the joint-second highest rated Gunner with Aaron Ramsey (7.2), only behind Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (8.2).
Arsenal have created 38 chances over their two games — more than any other team in the league. Ozil is the Gunners' top creator with 10. pic.twitter.com/28DbphOIwa
— AFCPressWatch (@AFCPressWatch2) August 21, 2017
As Wrighty points out, the 28-year-old has already created 10 chances for his teammates over just two fixtures. And this is when he’s NOT playing well?
Perhaps we should be looking at people who aren’t actually finishing said chances instead of the person creating them in the first place.
While Ozil isn’t exactly in form right now, the media and pundits using him as a scapegoat all the time is just getting boring.