I can see him being used for the home games against mid-bottom table opposition, and benched for the rest of the games, and I think he will perform that role well, he’s just massively overpaid for performing it.
I think the club would sell him this window if they could.
Or how about we get one of our best players performing and keep him?
Chambers-Holding CB partnership is as close to a 13th place finishing team partnership as I could imagine lol
I can’t see Özil not being at the club next year. I know pre-season can be taken with a pinch of salt, but players performing well and looking sharp is most certainly a good thing. He was fantastic against Bayern (though granted I only saw about 30 or so minutes extended highlights, but others have said the same).
It’s definitely encouraging anyway and if he stays alert and Emery can use him right then winner winner chicken dinner, an in-form Özil is probably the best player in our team.
As much as anything the problem is fitting him into a formation.
If we keep playing Auba and Laca as strikers, you either have Ozil as a CAM and have absolutely no width apart from the full backs, (which will then mean we’re exposed on the counter attack), or you play him in a midfield 2, but I don’t think anyone trusts his defensive work/ability enough for that.
Ozil is at his best given a free role with a creative midfielder behind him and wings flanking him. I wonder if part of the problem is that he hasn’t got anyone he can really interchange passes with. Something he thrived off with Alexis. He thrived off playing pass and move with Alexis, Santi, Wilshere and we don’t have any technical players other than Mkhitaryan who almost seems too similar.
The other reason he’s been constrained is Emery’s system of knocking it out to the wingback for crosses instead of triangular passes in and around the box. Ozil isn’t turning into a winger either.
But he is a world class player on his day and Emery should be building around him not asking him to do a job that’s he’s not equiped to do.
I can see why you think that but turn back the years a bit and remember some of the CB partnership we put out.
Willing to give them a chance personally. We’ve had bigger clowns play there. I’m sure some of us remember a period where a Koscielny-Mertesacker CB duo was the jokes.
Koscielny and Mertesacker were infinitely better defenders than both Holding and Chambers. It really isn’t even close.
Kos was 25 and Mertesacker 27 when they joined us though. At Holding’s current age, Kosceilny hadn’t yet had top flight experience and hadn’t had his breakthrough season.
Come on now. We had plenty of Moose minutes last year and were 2 points off third. 
Maybe you guys are right and I’m being pessimistic but his national team don’t want him and I think his presence will cause problems with players wondering why they are not worth his salary.
Having good friendlies isn’t a measure of how good any player is in real games especially when you consider the opposition isn’t really trying.
I don’t think any of our squad can complain about their salaries tbh. He got his salary because he was one of the best in the world, that’s something the rest of the squad should aspire to.
Exactly, and you can’t having wingers in a system with two strikers and a player with a free role such as Ozil. The numbers literally don’t add up.
So the choice is playing with 1 striker and having Auba or Laca (out best players) miss out for Ozil, or not having him in the team, I really can’t see another option…
You can if you play Auba as a RW, which seems fairly likely.
Pushing one of our best two players out of position to fit in someone who’s shown nothing in the last year/2 years is a waste.
Its likely to happen regardless of Ozil’s involvement. Emery clearly prefers to play with one striker but also clearly wants to get both Laca and Auba into the side. So there you go.
Lots of teams play 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 with one of the “wingers” really a wide forward with license to drift into the middle and occupy positions more like a striker. Auba used to play this way at BvB sometimes. It might not be the optimal use of his talent but its not like Emery would be using him in some crazy way. And the decision to do it is essentially independent of the decision on Ozil.
IMO Ozil was our best player the season before last. We probably won’t play with a 2 striker system anyway and even if we did one striker would have to drop deep much like a wide forward in many ways anyway. Good players adapt to systems. Zidane was pushed onto the right midfield for much of his Real tenure.
In terms of output in the premier league, he had a run of 4 goals and 5 assists in 10 games, but apart from that got 0 goals and 4 assists from the other 16 games, hardly stats of our best player of the season?
Yes there are other aspects to look at beyond goals and assists, but for a player playing in an attacking position and offering nothing defensively that surely must be the biggest thing you judge the player on?
He averaged 3.2 key passes though, which is elite. He can’t help it if the chances he creates aren’t put away.
Also 1 goal and 4 assists in the EL in 7 games
