Bashing Ozil is soooo 2014.

Before I begin, sorry for the lack of umlauts in the following piece. Whenever texting or tweeting I spell Ozil's name correctly as it's not hard but I'm no computer whizz and I don't know how to do it on a laptop. Sorry.

I'm also sorry for yet another piece coming your way about Mesut Ozil. There have been a countless amount ranging from how much of an unappreciated genius he is to why we should sell up and accept he's a flop. I've always been somewhere in the middle. On his day he's world class but has he justified the £42.5 million price tag? Probably not. But he's beginning to and since coming back from injury all bulked up he's been brilliant.

He's taken a lot of stick. Most of it WAY over the top but with the BBC finally giving him the credit he deserves on Match of the Day after his performance in Arsenal's three nil victory over West Ham and Sky Sports' Adam Bates writing this piece, ahead of the Monaco game it shows some of the media are finally starting to pay attention as well. Sadly, despite being our best player on the night - defending to the last, driving forward, making stuff happen - in our heroic exit to Monaco he was admonished by the pathetic excuses ITV offer for pundits. It had almost become fashionable to bash Ozil. Now, Ozil and his plethora of improved stats, will make you look stupid if you do but then again Andy Townesend and co don't need help to look stupid.

I watch most Arsenal games, if I'm not in the stadium, I'm watching it on the television. If it's not on television I'm following the *Ahem* live text on some foreign website that stops every ten minutes for a short break and constantly tells me there are desperate housewives just 3.2 miles away waiting for me to service them. I can tell you, without shadow of a doubt that, since coming back from injury Mesut Ozil has been superb overall.

The only game in which he wasn't good was the Monaco home game. Did any Arsenal player cover themselves in glory that night? No. There were plenty worse on show than Ozil though and yet, who did Gary Neville feel the need to blame? Who did he show his ire towards the most? Mesut Ozil. Gary Neville, is actually quite a likeable and decent pundit, but he annoyed me on this occasion.

I was quite glad when a friend of mine, who supports one of our rivals, text me to say "Neville's being a bit harsh on Ozil here isn't he?". In Mesut Ozil this country's league has one of the most mercurial and wonderful creative talents in the world and yet because he doesn't go from box to box making tackles and dribbling full pelt whilst shooting from thirty yards four times a game the media are going to demean every ounce of talent he has. Because he isn't the Steven Gerrard type of midfielder there's going to be an agenda. He isn't cut out for this league apparently, he was even nicking a living at one point according to Neil Ashton of The Daily Mail.

I buy a paper every morning, I've learnt to take most of what the papers write with a pinch of salt. They regularly make mistakes and the opinions of their sports writers are exactly that. Opinions. They should hold no more value than the opinion of myself or you reading this. There is a type of football fan which really bugs me though, the one who when he talks to you you can almost see the back pages of The Sun as he's speaking and when people tell me that Ozil is crap because of The Sun or The Mirror's match ratings, I'm not afraid to admit, it does me in.

Arsenal beat Everton two nil, Ozil created both goals. 6/10 according to The Sun and The Mirror. Against QPR, NBC (so my dodgy live blog told me) gave Ozil man of the match, he was brilliant. The Sun and The Mirror? 6/10. Last Monday, away at Old Trafford he was brilliant again. Who played the ball to Oxlade Chamberlain before he brilliantly played in Nacho for our opener? Ozil. Who played the ball delightfully over two United players to Danny Welbeck only for him to go down perhaps a bit too easily when he could have got a shot away? Ozil. Who played the ball through to Alexis only for him to force De Gea's second world class save of the night? Ozil. Did he get any credit? Of course not! What did The Sun give him? 6/10. What did The Mirror give him? You've guessed it. 6/10! Mesut Ozil went missing again I guess. He doesn't do it in the big games. Truth is, he was majestic that night. Involved everywhere. It's like people did not want to see it.

According to some Liverpool's Philippe Coutinho is now "up there with the David Silva's in this league." Give it a rest. Coutinho may one day reach that level, I wouldn't rule it out. He is only 22 years of age after all. He isn't anywhere near the level of Mesut Ozil or Santi Cazorla though, let alone David Silva. On average, per ninety minutes, Silva, Ozil and Cazorla make over two key passes. Coutinho? Less than two. Silva and Coutinho, on average this season in the league, over ninety minutes have generated a similar amount of assists but both fall distinctly behind Ozil and Cazorla. Coutinho then falls behind all three on chances created and goals scored on average per ninety minutes. It's interesting, that the media rave about him being so great when the only stat he can really claim as being better than the other three is the amount of tackles he makes on average over ninety minutes. We love a good ol' fashioned tackler in this country don't we?

I'm being harsh on Coutinho, he's a very good player. If he continues at the rate at which he is going he will probably be a world class player. He's 22 and the sky really is the limit for him, I'm just using him as an example to point out how much the media can big up one player and play down another and how loads will go along with it despite the fact, he's a still a level below.

Injuries and being played out of position certainly didn't help Mesut Ozil in his first season. He still finished with the most assists in Arsenal's team. He was slammed by our media for his performance during the World Cup last summer, The Daily Mail, going as far as to say he "barely registered an important kick" in an article which has since been deleted. He was joint second on chances created with seventeen. Adrian Durham, who very rarely has anything positive to say about Arsenal, has said you can now see why Madrid let him go so easily. Because £42.5 million is obviously the equivalent of buy one get one free in Poundland isn't it Adrian? I think if you asked Cristiano Ronaldo who he'd rather be playing with in Madrid he'd have our Mesut over Gareth Bale every day of the week. People can say "well it must be easy supplying Cristiano Ronaldo" but if that's the case why don't Madrid have Kevin Nolan playing there then instead? Exactly.

I have two cats, one is called Nwankwo Kanu. The other, Mesut Ozil. (I make the vet spell it with an umlaut). Mesut Ozil replaced another cat of mine, who sadly died in a car accident, called Bobby Pires. Mesut Ozil used to piss behind the television, he eventually got used to his surroundings became quite a good cat who now pisses outside and catches frogs and mice using his excellent vision. Ozil, the human being, appears more settled in his surroundings now and his performances tie in with that. So do his stats and there's no denying the "bulking up" has definitely helped him improve. He may only just be catching the media's attention but it appears as though going over the top and calling Ozil a flop is slowly becoming tiresome and boring. About time too.

Mesut Ozil. The cat.

After his first season in English football Mesut Ozil has an FA Cup winner's medal and he won the World Cup with Germany in the summer. I'm not sure he really cares what the media are saying about him. His stats are there to back him up, we wonder why our national team is so far behind when our media laud the talents of Scott Parker yet decry those of Mesut Ozil. To even mention Ozil in the same sentence as the word "flop" shows a lack of intelligence in my opinion. 

Long live The King of the Assists.

http://twitter.com/chrispople14 Tell us what you think! If you agree, or have a different view, please leave a comment in the comments section or why not write a response or your own article on YouWrite?

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