Arsenal’s club record signing Mesut Ozil has come under intense criticism in the last few weeks following a run of poor performances, which reached its peak in the 5-1 thumping at the hands of Liverpool. Ozil was brought to the club for a record £ 42.5 million from Real Madrid in the summer. He provided an instant lift to the club, which was reeling on the back of the opening day defeat at the hands of Aston Villa. Arsenal managed to go through several months on the high of signing Ozil that they have been top of the table for most of the season.
The performances of the German, though, have dropped in recent weeks and he was at his worst in the defeat against Liverpool on Saturday. He was responsible for two of the five goals scored by Liverpool, as he lost the ball very carelessly in the middle of the park. Amidst a lot of criticism for the player, manager Arsene Wenger has defended him ahead of the match with Manchester United. He says that every Arsenal player was guilty of poor performance against Liverpool and it was wrong to condemn only Ozil for this defeat.
He expected the German to come back strongly when Arsenal take on United at the Emirates looking to go top of the table.
“It’s always a disappointment to lose a game but we’ve been very stable defensively; we’d just been on a 10-game unbeaten run so you can’t see one game as a trend. It’s down to the team to respond in a positive way. Mesut Ozil? He was like everybody on Saturday – he was not in a good day. There’s nobody really to ostracise from that game – we are just conscious we were not good enough,” said Wenger in the pre-match press conference.