Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Özil have been the Gunners’ star players for the last few years, but the question of which one is more important is being asked more and more.
Both are in the last year of their current contracts, so it’s probable that at least one of them will leave. If one of them does, that will free up a lot of room in the budget to spend on extending the contract of the other, so to some extent it makes sense for people to ask which the Gunners would be better off keeping.
We’re going to try and determine which of the two has been more important to the side since joining:
Team performance with and without
Perhaps a better way to judge the two players is on how the team does in their absence.
We’ve looked at the number of league games won, drawn and lost by the team when either player wasn’t around.
Other competitions were excluded because of the large variation in standard of opposition.
For example, Arsenal will probably lose to Bayern Munich and beat Lincoln City regardless of Alexis or Özil’s inclusion.
In Özil’s case, he’s missed 35 league games since joining the Gunners. Arsenal have won 18 of these, drawn eight and lost nine. That’s a 51% win rate when Mesut isn’t around, and 26% of matches lost without the German.
Meanwhile in Alexis’ time so far he’s missed 13 league games. Arsenal have won 8, drawn two and lost three of those. That’s a 62% win rate without him, and 23% of matches lost.
Özil takes this one then, although it should be pointed out Mesut’s record of missing a fifth of Arsenal’s league games isn’t favourable in comparison to the Chilean’s.