Charlie Nicholas suggests Arsenal should offload Mesut Ozil as soon as possible

Follow us on Google Discover

Arsenal manager Unai Emery has frozen the Gunners midfielder out from the Emirates Stadium first team for a number of weeks.

Sky Sports pundit Charlie Nicholas has issued a brutal verdict regarding Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil following his drop to the fringes of the Gunners first team under Unai Emery (Sky Sports News).

The Arsenal cult hero is of the opinion that the German could have “just downed tools”, prompting Emery to freeze him out, and suggesting that, in such scenarios, these players should be “out of the building as soon” as possible.

Ozil has made just two appearances this season for Arsenal and has not featured for Unai Emery’s side since the EFL Cup third round win over Nottingham Forest at the end of September.

Indeed, the 31-year-old has not been included in any of Arsenal’s last six matchday squads and, last week, he was reportedly spotted in tense talks with Emery at the club’s training ground ahead of the Europa League match against Vitoria (Metro).

There has been one positive development in that Ozil could be in contention against Liverpool in the EFL Cup in midweek after Emery confirmed he will be in the squad (official Arsenal website) but even this move has been met with some scepticism by sections of the fanbase.

“Ozil has been a superstar for such a long time and he’s not really dressed it up. He doesn’t really fit into the system properly,” Nicholas wrote on Sky Sports News. “Dani Ceballos is probably now in front of him and it sounds to me like Ozil has just downed tools and is not putting in what the manager is demanding in training. And because of that Emery has decided that if you don’t train properly then I won’t be introducing you or putting you anywhere near the team.

“This is where it starts to fester. Sometimes you’ve just got to get them out of the building as soon as you can. I know there’s been talk about him going to Turkey. That might flag up again and there’s even been talk about him going to America, so that might also be an option. If Ozil is the type of guy he should be, or was, then he wants to play football. He wants to be loved again because he’s so talented, but to just sit in the background, probably moaning and groaning about most things that go wrong, it’s wrong.”