Mesut Özil sent a message of congratulations to his Arsenal teammates after the FA Cup win on Saturday, with Mikel Arteta not ignoring the player’s contributions.

Mesut Özil travelled to Turkey over the last few days, with permission from Arsenal and Mikel Arteta, missing out on the FA Cup final as a result. He wasn’t going to make the squad anyway, so he began his time off early.

After Arsenal lifted the trophy, the playmaker sent a message to his teammates on Instagram, saying:

“Great job my boys!!! #LondonIsRed #YaGunnersYa #FACupWinners”

Meanwhile, Arteta gave a mention to the player in his post-match press conference. When answering a question about William Saliba and Shkodran Mustafi attending the game, he said:

“They are all part of it. We don’t have Matteo and Mesut here and they are a big part of it because they all contributed to it. They all should be a big part of it because all of them have contributed.”

In terms of direct contribution to the FA Cup win, Özil’s influence wasn’t particularly large. He played a very good game against Leeds United, creating four chances, two of which went down as ‘big chances’ in the stats.

But after that, he only appeared in one more squad, making the bench against Bournemouth. Still, he’s there in training and he was playing the league games whilst others played in the cup, so Arteta is presumably referring to that contribution as well.

Özil reportedly still wants to make it back into Arteta’s squad next season. He has another year on his Arsenal contract, and he’s planning to see it out in North London. There are no guarantees anything will change, but that’s his plan.