Martin Keown has had a brutal dig at Mesut Ozil’s powers of recovery after he took “five minutes to recover” from a slight knock in Arsenal’s Europa League win over Qarabag.
Ozil made his return to the Arsenal team on Thursday night at Emirates Stadium after missing three match matches with a back injury.
Keown was unimpressed by Ozil’s ability to withstand a slight knock during the match and called for him to toughen up.
“Emery has shown it doesn’t matter about the reputation, but Ozil is exciting with his passes, he can switch the play, it’s all there for him, for me it’s just if he wants it enough, ” Keown told BT Sport’s live coverage in the aftermath of Thursday’s clash.
“‘He has that ability to change a game but it took him almost five minutes to recover from a bit of a knock and those are the kinds of areas he has to improve.”
OPINION
Arsenal’s final Europa League group stage match was as low-key as it will get this season. Ozil got 83 minutes under his belt after shaking off a back injury that had kept him out of the recent Premier League clashes against Huddersfield, Manchester United and Tottenham, but did little to dispel the fears that his Arsenal career is starting its downhill descent towards the exit door. The gargantuan salary the north Londoners handed the playmaker in January of this year means it won’t be easy to find a buyer in a market short of clubs willing to offer a 30-year-old close to the reported £350,000-a-week he is paid by Arsenal. That said, Ozil has slipped down the pecking order in recent weeks as Emery makes his mark in eyecatching fashion on a club that had underperformed for so long. Keown calls for the German to toughen up, but it is hard to see him changing at this point in his career. Ozil is a great talent capable of marvellous things, but his languid style just isn’t suited to the hungry and energetic Arsenal.