Alex Iwobi thinks Mesut Özil works hard than people give him credit for, and he named the 31-year-old among the top players he played with.

Speaking in an Instagram Live this week, Alex Iwobi discussed former teammate Mesut Özil, among others. The former Gunner was talking about his top five footballing teammates, and he picked the German at number four in the list.

Iwobi argued that people don’t always see the hard work Özil is putting in on the pitch.

“He was crazy,” Iwobi said. “Obviously, because of his body language, people think he’s not working hard. But he actually works hard, people judge it wrong.”

To complete the top five, Iwobi named Santi Cazorla, Glen Kamara, Chuba Akpom and Francis Coquelin.

The 23-year-old admitted some people might find those choices strange, but in fairness, three of them came from the academy like him. He obviously spent more time with them and got to know them better on the pitch than many others.

Kamara and Coquelin are both earning plenty of praise for their recent performances with Rangers and Valencia. So much so that reports this year suggested Arsenal were watching Kamara ahead of a possible return.

Meanwhile, Akpom used to dominate the scoring in the youth teams, and he won the Greek Super League and Cup double last season. He even scored the winner in the final.

Obviously, the main factor in Iwobi’s decision is probably still his friendship with them. You can’t really blame him for that.