Football journalist David Ornstein has been sharing some details on Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil and his current situation at the north London club.
This comes after Ornstein recently co-hosted the latest episode of The Athletic’s Ornstein & Chapman Podcast where he spoke about a number of topics concerning clubs across the Premier League.
On the subject of Ozil, Ornstein had this to say on the German.
He said: “I don’t think there’s any great expectation on behalf of the club or the player that he is going to be reintegrated [into Arsenal’s squad].
“He seems to be training with the first team. I think he’s been given a bit of time off with the club’s blessing just recently, so I don’t know if he’s with the first-team setup as we speak, but he has been throughout the season and from what we hear, his fitness is in good shape.
“We know about his technical level, there’s no match fitness whatsoever. He’s not played a single second of football since lockdown in March, so I’d be, as I said before, very surprised and I think that there’s no expectation, really, at this point in time on behalf of the club or the player that he’ll be playing again for Arsenal.”
Arsenal signed Ozil back in 2013 from Real Madrid for a fee of £42.3 million. Since then, the 32-year-old has made 254 appearances for Arsenal in which he has managed to score 44 goals and provide 77 assists along the way (per Transfermarkt).
TIF Thoughts on David Ornstein’s comments on Ozil…
Back in October, Ozil was left out of Arsenal’s Premier League squad for the current season. Taking this into account, the fact that his contract at the Emirates runs out in summer and what Ornstein had to say in the podcast, everything suggests that the German will be leaving the club at the end of the season.
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In our view, if Ozil does indeed leave the club in the summer, it would be a sorry way for him to spend his final year at the club.