Ozil Must Not Start Against Stoke - Here's Why

Mesut Ozil was completely left out of the Arsenal squad when the Gunners hosted Sunderland last weekend. There was conflicting reports surrounding the reason as to why Ozil was left out of the squad with some suggesting that he picked up an injury while others were saying he was being rested. Whatever the reason, he was left out of the squad and the team, as a whole, played better and won 4-1. I'm not for one minute suggesting that Arsenal are stronger without Ozil, but Arsenal did play with more energy and were more productive in attack.

Ozil wrote a status on Facebook recently declaring his fitness for the Stoke game and that he'll be available for the game. I am extremely happy with this news, as would any Arsenal fan be, to have him back in the team. But could his return to the starting line up wait a while?

In my opinion, yes.

With Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey still out of the squad and with Olivier Giroud returning to form, this is one of the worst possible systems for Ozil to play in unless Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or Serge Gnabry have a productive game.

The reason for this is that Ozil works best in a system having a selfish striker in attack who will always look to run in behind the defence. A winger who does the same and midfield runners like Ramsey. Without those three components, he tends to struggle, as we've noticed.

Traveling to a team like Stoke, they play dirty and will target Ozil, if he does play. We, as a club, will want to avoid anything serious happening to Ozil when we have that very difficult run towards the end of March. Also, the team we fielded on Saturday are stronger and have more bite which is why I also think Tomas Rosicky should start after his masterclass against Sunderland.

Ozil will be vitally important to us in our bid for the title but maybe we should hold out for a little while longer before deploying him back in the team.

Comments

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I'd give Ozil 60 mins in this game. They''ll be playing 10 men behind the ball, we need someone who can give a defence splitting pass, and he's the one.

Are they going to target Ozil? Perfect, Ozil can be a decoy, they'll be busy covering him creating space for other players...so Ozil may have an unproductive game, but instead someone else who is not being covered so well can take the opportunity.

All we need is 1-0 against them, and we're better off with Ozil playing, if there's one player who can unlock tight defences, it's him.