Arsenal’s crushing loss to Dortmund puts Ozil, Arteta on the burner, but should Wenger attract more blame?Tony Harper
FOX SPORTS September 17, 2014
YOU wonder what will be judged to be the bigger blunder of Arsene Wenger’s autumn years at Arsenal, paying 42 million pounds for Mesut Ozil or passing up on an option to re-sign revitalised Chelsea star Cesc Fabregas.
Arsenal’s defeat to Borussia Dortmund, in such chastening fashion, ended a run of 14 unbeaten, a stat that only masks how poorly the team has performed this season.
A Demba Ba afro away from Champions League elimination to Besiktas, a late winner against Crystal Palace, two goals down before drawing with Everton, a draw with Leicester and not having the mental strength to bring home a win against Manchester City, and extending their miserable run against top four teams to Pld 31 W 7 D 6 L 18 in the past five years.
As the club’s record signing, Ozil has had to shoulder much of the scrutiny but fault lines run deep at the club under Wenger’s watch.
This was a club that was under achieving well before his arrival; a club where big money signings such as Jose Antonio Reyes and Andre Arshavin, have had their careers dented.
Stuck out where he neither desires or belongs on the periphery, and tasked, despite an obvious dislike of tackling, with giving some protection to debutant fullback Hector Bellerin - playing because of Wenger’s risky transfer dealings - Ozil had the latest in a long line of big game shockers against Dortmund.
Ozil media bashing is rampant, Danny Mills’s over the top reaction to the German’s adequate performance against Manchester City on Fox Sports last weekend bordered on obsessive. Post-Dortmund the Daily Mail compared him to Juan Sebastian Veron, the big flop of the Fergie era at Manchester United, speculating that, like the Argentine, Ozil is “unquestionably gifted but perhaps not cut out for the way an English team want to play.”
For a while now, Arsenal fans have felt he has been unfairly hammered; they see him as a subtle genius misunderstood by the mainstream.
Ozil, wrote Barney Ronay brilliantly in the Guardian recently,
“is like the world’s greatest triangle player waiting in the wings to apply the perfect final tinkle with a single flex of a princely hand.”
Wenger, meanwhile, is a composer who is writing fewer and fewer triangle solos, while unable to put the instrument aside and embrace the pounding jazz drumming of an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or Lukas Podolski.It’s not that Wenger doesn’t know how to act swiftly and brutally. He sidelined Arshavin before his time, and Arshavin produced more in his first 13 months than Ozil has.
The man who led Europe’s top leagues in assists in his final season at Real Madrid, and won a World Cup medal, has produced just three assists in his past 20 games for Arsenal. (And it can’t just be because Wenger considers Yaya Sanogo a Premier League and Champions League class striker). He hasn’t scored since April, and never away from the Emirates.
More and more Arsenal fans are coming to grips with the evidence in front of them, and Fabregas’s footballing love affair with Diego Costa makes it so much worse.
Ozil, however, is a symptom rather than the disease.
Against Dortmund the defensive rigour and organisation was, and this will come as no shock, dreadful; they were ponderous and torn apart. Wenger gave Bellerin a massive task on debut - and if he had no choice, whose fault is that? - just as he did when Sanogo led the line against Bayern Munich last season.
Much faith has been put in the lumbering Per Mertesacker, and no Gooner can deny his heart’s in the right place, but couple him in a spine with Mikel Arteta or Mathieu Flamini, and off the pace is an understatement.
Wenger’s teams travelled away for big games against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea last season and conceded 17 goals in those three games. Were lessons learnt? Well, the 2-0 on Wednesday could easily have been six or seven.
Arteta bore the brunt of fan disgust, but listen to any fan calling into any football talkback show over the past few years and the ‘what do Arsenal need?’ question turns up the same answer.
Another centre half. A defensive midfielder in the Vieira mould. A world class striker. None out of three is worse than bad, it’s negligent for a team chasing honours.
Against Manchester City, Flamini let Sergio Aguero leave him for dead through the midfield and arrive to sweetly sweep home City’s first goal.
Can it get worse? Yes. One of the shining lights so far has been the past two performances from Jack Wilshere.
Soon Theo Walcott will return and on previous evidence Wenger will have Wilshere make way, to keep his record fee misfit in the XI.
Oxlade-Chamberlain is another who deserves a go, who will at least have a go.
For now Wenger is poor tactically against better managers, poor in the transfer market and too forgiving of his favourites. A master at finishing fourth and making the last 16 of the Champions League. And there’s no sign of it changing any time soon.
Yes, Wenger guided Arsenal into a new stadium and an era of prosperity after a turbulent time, but is he the man to take them the next step?
http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/arsenals-crushing-loss-to-dortmund-puts-ozil-arteta-on-the-burner-but-should-wenger-attract-more-blame/story-e6frf423-1227061704759Edited by Damo Baresi: 17/9/2014 07:06:00 PM