Arsene Wenger believes Mesut Ozil’s current state at Arsenal is led by the player’s mental state after signing a contract extension with the club.
The Gunners could not hold on to Alexis Sanchez but they did manage to tie down Mesut Ozil to the club for the next two seasons with a £350,000 contract in January 2018. It was Wenger who handed the attacking midfielder such a huge pay raise but ever since the club has not seen the expected returns.
Ozil has understandably fallen out of Unai Emery’s favour which majority of the blame falling on the Spanish manager. However, the 30-year-old has not done much to warrant his regular selection either.
After being honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Laureus World Sports Awards, Wenger addressed the topic and said, “I feel that the length of the contract has nothing to do normally with the selection of the team.”
“But sometimes there are special cases. Most of the time now we think when we sign a player for five years we have a good player for five years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they practise, they play their best. Because they might be in their comfort zone.”
“He has a contract but the problem is that, if you want to buy a player like him, you have to spend £100m. And to maintain the value of the player, beyond the Özil case, it is more about the way football is structured.”
“To buy players of top, top quality you need £100m. So the decision you have to make is whether you re-sign the player, who costs us nothing, or do we have the money to buy a new player?”
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