Arsenal star told to play for his future

Former Gunners star believes the player should be under scrutiny

Mesut Ozil joined Arsenal from Real Madrid for a reported fee of £42.5 million, signing a five-year deal in 2013. He has been a mainstay in the midfield since joining the club and has won 3 FA Cups.

The 29 year old has had a difficult summer after feeling persecuted for Germany’s early exit from the World Cup where his meeting with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was cited as a reason for the poor performances.

He even decided to retire from International football and was criticized by several senior officials in the German Football Association.

The playmaker featured in both the club’s opening Premier League games against Chelsea and Manchester City but was dropped against West Ham United in the following game. However, he returned to the starting line up against Cardiif City.

There have been reports of bust up between between him and the manager Unai Emery and that was the reason he was dropped. Though the Spaniard later claimed that the player missed the game due to illness.

However, the Spaniard is demanding more from the Fermany International and wants him to be more consistent.

Former club defender Lee Dixon believes Ozil should be under scrutiny and considers that to be a good thing to be put under pressure to play for their future.

He told Daily Star: “I hope so. I really do, I hope they all do.

“He’s a high-profile player, and that comes with his price tag and his wages. That’s why most of the attention is directed at him because he is arguably Arsenal’s most talented player, the most creative player.

“So a lot’s been expected of him but it shouldn’t be any other way. There should be scrutiny on him, that’s his job.

“And if he doesn’t produce what Emery wants him to do, and he might say to him – some managers, you can play with players who don’t work maybe as hard as other players.

“You can accommodate and say ‘do you know what, it’s OK, because you’re going to get this, this and this’.

“Now, if what he produces is enough in order to take the team and carry them in certain parts of the game then fine. That’s been the case in the past when what he’s produced has been enough to warrant his wages and his position in the team and his status level at the club.

“Now, the players dictate quite a lot of that because if you’re not producing and things are not going well then the team should be policing itself from within.

“All the teams I’ve played in policed themselves from within and you knew that certain players you were going to get this, certain players you were going to get goals, certain players you were going to get creativity.

“You might not get rough and tumble at times from some of them but you’d accommodate that and say ’do you know what, I’m quite good at that so I’ll do his work for him’ to a certain extent. It all goes to the makeup and the character of the team.

“Whether Mesut Ozil fits into that with his team-mates and whether that fits in with the manager and what he requests of him, that’s the testing part and I’m still not sure how that’s going to work out with Emery and Ozil.

“There seems to be something there that he’s going and said openly ‘I need a bit more from him in certain areas’.

“I’m sure he needs a bit more from all of his team in certain areas, but because Mesut is so high profile and we all want to talk about him because he’s such a talent and he’s so frustrating at times, that’s why he’s such an interesting subject.”