Sokratis has described Mesut Ozil as one of the most important players at Arsenal amid heavy speculation regarding the playmaker’s future.
The 30-year-old former German international returned to Unai Emery’s starting line-up against BATE having missed three consecutive matches as well as only featuring in two of the Gunners’ previous ten outings.
How has Ozil fared this season. Five key things to know…
- Ozil is Arsenal’s top earner, he’s reportedly pocketing £350k a week.
- So far this season he’s featured in 19 of the Gunners 37 matches in all competitions.
- A combination of injuries and not fitting the manager’s tactical plans has seen him miss out 18 of those contests.
- Of his 19 appearances he’s started 15 but has only completed the full 90 minutes just seven times.
- In terms of productivity Ozil has bagged four goals and created a further two.
Injuries, sickness and not fitting his manager’s tactical plans has forced Ozil to miss 49% of Arsenal’s opening 37 matches in all competitions this season. So far Ozil has featured on 19 occasions, with 15 of those being starts, but he’s only managed to complete the full 90 minutes on just seven occasions.
It looked so promising earlier in the campaign when Emery gave the Gelsenkirchen-born footballer the captain’s armband. Ozil reacted positively, notably scoring and creating another in the Gunners’ 3-1 win over Leicester City last October, but he soon fall out of favor.
Ozil, who penned his latest contract in January 2018, keeping him at the Emirates Stadium until June 2021, subsequently attracted speculation linking him with a move away, but as far as teammate and central defender Sokratis is concerned he remains a key figure.
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“Mesut is a fantastic player and when he is fit he is one of the most important players of the team,” Sokratis said (via Sky Sports).
“Of course when something is not going good, everybody is there to criticise, but we have to see also what Mesut did in the last years for this team. All the team, all the players are behind him and we need a good Mesut to go [forward] because we know that he is very important for us.
“He was sick, he had some problems, but after he came back for training, it was the same situation as me: when I was injured and I came back, it is not that I have to play from the first game in the first 11.
“Now he is good. He did well [on Thursday] and I hope in the next games he will go [forward] like this.”
Ozil the creator
Since joining from Real Madrid in 2013 for a then club record fee of £42.4m the German playmaker has gone on to make no fewer than 215 appearances for the Gunners.
Across those matches he has registered 41 goals and create a further 73 for his teammates. His most prolific season was the 2015/16 campaign in which he created 19 league goals – one shy of the Premier League record set by Arsenal legend Thierry Henry in 2002/03.
During that season Ozil would set the Premier League record for most consecutive games with at least one assist: seven between September 2015 and November 2015.
Before this season he’s failed to reach double digits when it came to Premier League assists in a season twice (six in 2014/15 and nine in 2017/18). His other three league campaigns yielded 10 (2013/14), 19 (2015/16) and 10 (2016/17). So far during this campaign it’s one goal created after 14 matches played.
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