Morning y’all and a happy Wednesday to be bestowed upon thee. A Wednesday in which Man United reminded us that being in the Champions League has its disadvantages, as United crashed out to Sevilla leaving Jose sad and Alexis looking bemused.
Again, having enjoyed a fair old dose of schadenfreude last week and having had the Totts last week and a couple of wins for us, it feels like we’re being treated to a whole heap of joy that’s been concertina’d into a spell of two weeks. Personally I’d prefer my joy spread out over the course of the season, but having had so little of it since the turn of the year, we must gorge ourselves on the feast we have been presented with, for we know not when the next stench of our own team’s failings will come back to haunt us.
But I can’t spend all blog talking about a horrible team, manager and certain Chilean, because Arsenal come first and today’s thinking is all about Mesut.
I just love watching him play. Someone described him on Twitter the other day as ethereal and I think that’s a really apt way of describing our talisman.
I/we are under no illusions that he was given an eye-watering incentive to stay at the club, but quite frankly I don’t care, because when the announcement was made that he’s signed for a few more years I was just glad I will get to see more of him next season.
Some Gooners get frustrated with him but not me. I just love the way he plays football. I love the way he glides across the pitch. I love his movement. I love that he can weave in and out of tight spaces and above all I love that he sees things that nobody else seems to see when it comes to the final third. Like the Mkhitaryan goal against Milan, or the pass to Monreal for the goal against Swansea, these are the types of plays that we want to see from him and despite some slightly poor performances since Christmas – by which every single one of the team has also been pretty shocking by the way – he has still given us moments of brilliance.
I have a proper soft spot for Mesut. Like Arsène and his interminable desire to constantly back Iwobi in the face of constant poor performances, to me Mesut Özil can rarely do wrong. I suspect it’s probably because in the Arsenal machine, he’s the Bang and Olufsen sound system in the fancy car. It makes beautiful music but doesn’t make life any easier when the engine cuts out and you’re stuck on the M40.
When that happens I don’t tend to be too happy about the car in general so in the same way whilst I’m happy to acknowledge that Özil has had some poor games in this poor season, he is not the major concern with the composition of the team right now.
Even when he does interviews like the ones the club has just released, I get warm and fuzzy feelings, even though I know that had Barcelona, Juve, City, PSG and Real Madrid all been clamouring for his signature this summer, he’d probably have been off. But I can look beyond that because he’s saying the right things in front of the Arsenal cameras. Despite the fact that it’s probably only half true, I don’t even care, because he’s ours and when he talks of ‘unfinished business’ I want to believe with all my heart he can bring back glory to the club.
It could even start with the Europa League. Given we’ve one one European competition of note in the clubs history, the Europa League is not one to be sniffed at and hey if Mesut helps to drive us to victory by putting balls on a plate for players like Mkhi, Ramsey, Lacazette et al this season, we can say he’s helped to create history at the club.
I still think it’s unlikely given the other teams in the competition but the thought that we could possibly win a European competition is exciting to me. We haven’t had that for the best part of a decade and it could be within our grasp.
And in ten years time when Özil has long since retired, if he’s won three Fa Cups and a Europa League trophy, do we really think we won’t be looking back at his time and calling him a legend? Legends win trophies and he’s already done that at The Arsenal.
It’s within his grasp. He just needs to see through the ‘unfinished business’ he talks about on the official site.
Catch you lovely people all tomorrow.
Leave a Reply