Ozil is probably about the 100th best player in the world right now, and that's being kind
I notice its a lot of the same people who are having a go about Ozil and dont recognise the job he does in the team to do are the same ones who still think Xhaka only needs a bit of time to get used to the PL and dont recognise his failings are bigger than that.
As I said earlier, Ozil is a link up player. Midfield need to get the ball to him and move upfield to make themselves available or draw defenders from other attackers and Ozil will link up play and make a pass. He is good at that, its what he does. He will never be a defender, although I have noticed he does put more effort into that side of his game now.
If midfield dont get the ball to him and dont help create space he cant do his job.
In the last 2 games we have struggled to get the ball forward and people are complaining that Ozil and the other attacking players havent done enough. What has changed? Midfield. Its clear that this is where are problems stem from.
With Coq and Xhaka staying central and not getting forwrd it means that the defence has less players to defend against so its easier to stop them getting the ball or tackle them. Santi is the best at the midfield attacking role because he will run at the defence and they have to go to him, he will then play a good pass to a player who now has more space because he has drawn players towards him. Ramsey will run at players and draw them towards him and then play a poorer pass after players have been drawn to him and it has opened up space. Xhaka sits deep looking for a pass to play when there is not as much space and our players struggle to find any space. Its less effective and affects the whole attack, resulting in other players looking poor as no one is drawing players and creating space.
There are different tactics and ways of playing the game, but whatever you play the whole team has to fit into those tactics. Is that really so hard to understand?
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
Ozil is good but when the going get's tough he is often found wanting in the effort department. I thought you guys knew this when you got him.
He's past it. Poor player now
If this new excuse for Ozil is that he doesn't receive the ball then what the Fack does Sanchez do as the striker if the number 10 can't get him the ball?
He does walk around waiting for the ball, he goes into MF and gets it
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
What a stupid excuse stating the rest of team needs to get the ball to Ozil before he can do something.
Why doesn't the lazy, arrogant twaat fight for the ball and then create some magic. We paid so much for him and he's on such high wages, expect much more from him
What is unforgivable is lack of effort.
I'm firmly in the camp of accepting that Ozil will always be a defensive liability and that the manager should select which games he plays in accordingly.
In the modern game, poacher strikers have been phased out because they don't contribute anything to the build-up. In the same way, languid no.10s have also been phased out because they don't contribute enough in the defensive phase. Ozil is a throwback player, a "poacher" no.10 who's only interested in the final pass or finish. On paper he plays as the furthest forward of a midfield 3 but in reality, because he doesn't get goalside of the opposition deepest midfielder, he often leaves his team outnumbered 3 vs 2 in the middle. The same problem you have when you field a 4-4-2. Which is why the 4-4-2 is outdated and no longer used by the upper tier teams.
Much like you can get away with playing a poacher like Hernandez or Gomez in a lot of league games against weaker opposition, you can also afford to play Ozil at no.10 in the majority of games. But in the big crunch games, where teams are increasingly better-drilled and defence is so key, it's often a disadvantage, and we may be better served keeping Ozil on the bench for such games with more of a compact 3 in midfield. This is not something revolutionary. Mourinho recognsied this deficiency at RM and often played with a more pragmatic midfield in big games. RM won 2 CL titles after selling Ozil. Bayern won the CL after replacing Gomez at CF. Ditto Utd with Van Nistelrooy. At the highest level you can simply no longer afford to carry even 1 player who leaves you short in some aspect of the game.
What I laugh about the ozil fan boys is that they blame everyone else for his failings. "He doesn't have enough protection behind him" "the wingers aren't making the right runs". Against a westbrom and a Bournemouth when he had time on the ball with little pressure you will see the best. Against quality oposistion like city you won't get that time and space and it is games like yesterday that your true class has to show. He's a luxury player who can play a killer through pass that is all.
"Ozil is a throwback player, a "poacher" no.10 who's only interested in the final pass or finish"
This is pretty much true. Ozil is a final third player. In the final third there are not many better ( I'd argue only messi) at knowing when to just play the easy pass or play the incisive pass. In my opinion this is the most important role of a number 10 and he's outstanding at it.
"On paper he plays as the furthest forward of a midfield 3 but in reality, because he doesn't get goalside of the opposition deepest midfielder, he often leaves his team outnumbered 3 vs 2 in the middle"
This does happen occasionally but on the whole ozil is fine at keeping the gaps between him and the other midfielders small enough to set us up to intercept the ball. This is one of the reasons that his distance covered stats are one of the highest for us.
In my opinion that aspect of his defensive game is fine but where he lacks is pressing with intensity after he loses the ball.
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 11 minutes ago
What I laugh about the ozil fan boys is that they blame everyone else for his failings. "He doesn't have enough protection behind him" "the wingers aren't making the right runs". Against a westbrom and a Bournemouth when he had time on the ball with little pressure you will see the best. Against quality oposistion like city you won't get that time and space and it is games like yesterday that your true class has to show. He's a luxury player who can play a killer through pass that is all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Our game plan yesterday was not to control possession as it is against teams like west Brom. This makes a difference to ozil's role. People are criticising Ozil based on how Silva was key for city keeping the ball, but aren't taking into account the fact that the 2 game plans were different and ours was not conducive to ozil getting loads of touches on the ball. What the game plan required was for ozil to produce the key passes on counter attacks and he did that multiple times in the first half.
Our plan was clearly not to play high up the pitch. The plan was for the midfielders and defenders to just contain by keeping the gaps small between them and then win the ball when city make a mistake and counter attack. In my opinion it was the right plan and we would've killed city off in the first half if certain players moved the ball more quickly on the counter attack (alexis was a culprit for slowing them down quite a few times).
People are saying ozil was hiding, but by that logic you would say that mahrez and vardy were hiding last season! When we don't have much possession and are not aiming to, what do you expect a player like ozil to do?
When we had the ball he was instrumental in everything we created as always. In the second half he or the whole team didn't manage to create anything but the main cause of that was our defenders and coquelin and xhaka not stringing 2 passes together so we couldn't create counter attacking openings.
When the ball did get to ozil on these counter attacks, yes his control was sometimes not up to scratch and I'm not claiming he had an amazing game, but he was surrounded by city players with few to pass the ball to. This was partly because neither coquelin or xhaka are good at getting up to support the attack.
So overall given the game plan, it was a decent performance from ozil. Outstanding in the first half but poor in the second, but his supply was extremely limited in the second half.
Wow is this jollywood inventor in disguise?
comment by Castor Troy (U8700)
posted 1 minute ago
Wow is this jollywood inventor in disguise?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nah i was dat guy welbz before.
Sorry jollywood, you're proving my point and making excuses for ozil. He got on the ball in the 2nd half, gave it away, shrugged his shoulders at teammates, didn't run back to try and win it. We pressed city high in the first half with Sanchez , Walcott , iwobi. It was picked out after the game by souness , Ozil was just strolling around in the first half this was also picked out.
On Vardy and mahrez they took countless of games by the neck last season particularly Mahrez who single handily won Leicester games. I'd say Theo and alexis were our most dangerous players in the first half yesterday. Enough excuses with ozil, he was pi$$ poor. As I said our next 6 fixtures you will probably see him get on the ball more and create things for us. Fans will be singing his name again , then we go to Stamford bridge hel disappear.
Definitely wouldn't play him at Stamford Bridge
What no seems to have considered is that you normally have one or two players who stay upfield a bit to try to win the ball from any clearances. That is usally Ozil for us as hes not the best defensively and he has the ability to relese the ball to players running out from defence.
But yesterday I did notice a few times he made a efensive contribution.
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 5 minutes ago
Sorry jollywood, you're proving my point and making excuses for ozil. He got on the ball in the 2nd half, gave it away, shrugged his shoulders at teammates, didn't run back to try and win it. We pressed city high in the first half with Sanchez , Walcott , iwobi. It was picked out after the game by souness , Ozil was just strolling around in the first half this was also picked out.
On Vardy and mahrez they took countless of games by the neck last season particularly Mahrez who single handily won Leicester games. I'd say Theo and alexis were our most dangerous players in the first half yesterday. Enough excuses with ozil, he was pi$$ poor. As I said our next 6 fixtures you will probably see him get on the ball more and create things for us. Fans will be singing his name again , then we go to Stamford bridge hel disappear.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We did press at times in the first half but it didn't seem to be the overriding plan. That seemed to be to sit back and counter. I didn't watch the post match analysis but fair enough that is poor if all the other attackers were pressing and ozil wasn't joining in.
Yes mahrez did win games for leicester, but he did it in 'moments' as leicester didn't have much possession. Yesterday our plan was to win the game by producing 'moments' without dominating possession. On the counter in the first half ozil produced several of these. One time he played a perfect one two to get alexis in behind on the right hand side and there was another time where he arrowed the ball perfectly into walcott's feet which seemed so unlikely because of the tight marking and then that nearly led to monreal getting through from walcott's touch but he was offside. There were a few more I think that I've forgotten. People are criticising him for not
My point is that given the plan we were trying to execute he did what was expected of him in the first half by producing key passes on counter attacks.
In the second half he definitely was bundled off the ball too many times but as I said it was made hard for him by the lack of support in many situations.
Whilst I would like him to work harder after he loses it, people get too caught up on this. His purpose in the team is not to win the ball back. It's to create opportunities in the final third and he consistently does that-even yesterday.
He got on the ball in the 2nd half, gave it away, shrugged his shoulders at teammates, didn't run back to try and win it.
--------------------------------------------
I saw that too but thought he was fed uop and complaining about the poor ball to him which was easy to pick off by the defender.
jollywood.
Be careful you are talking sense most of the jokers on here don't understand football let alone tactics.
Yeah neither do ex footballers
comment by Castor Troy (U8700)
posted 8 minutes ago
Yeah neither do ex footballers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The ex footballers on tv tend to be overly dramatic because of trying to provide entertainment
Also when it comes to ozil I think some find his style annoying as he makes it look too easy. All these British pundits are obsessed with players showing 'desire'. That's probably the most used word on sky sports
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OZIL
Page 3 of 4
posted on 19/12/16
Ozil is probably about the 100th best player in the world right now, and that's being kind
posted on 19/12/16
I notice its a lot of the same people who are having a go about Ozil and dont recognise the job he does in the team to do are the same ones who still think Xhaka only needs a bit of time to get used to the PL and dont recognise his failings are bigger than that.
As I said earlier, Ozil is a link up player. Midfield need to get the ball to him and move upfield to make themselves available or draw defenders from other attackers and Ozil will link up play and make a pass. He is good at that, its what he does. He will never be a defender, although I have noticed he does put more effort into that side of his game now.
If midfield dont get the ball to him and dont help create space he cant do his job.
In the last 2 games we have struggled to get the ball forward and people are complaining that Ozil and the other attacking players havent done enough. What has changed? Midfield. Its clear that this is where are problems stem from.
With Coq and Xhaka staying central and not getting forwrd it means that the defence has less players to defend against so its easier to stop them getting the ball or tackle them. Santi is the best at the midfield attacking role because he will run at the defence and they have to go to him, he will then play a good pass to a player who now has more space because he has drawn players towards him. Ramsey will run at players and draw them towards him and then play a poorer pass after players have been drawn to him and it has opened up space. Xhaka sits deep looking for a pass to play when there is not as much space and our players struggle to find any space. Its less effective and affects the whole attack, resulting in other players looking poor as no one is drawing players and creating space.
There are different tactics and ways of playing the game, but whatever you play the whole team has to fit into those tactics. Is that really so hard to understand?
posted on 19/12/16
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 19/12/16
Ozil is good but when the going get's tough he is often found wanting in the effort department. I thought you guys knew this when you got him.
posted on 19/12/16
He's past it. Poor player now
posted on 19/12/16
If this new excuse for Ozil is that he doesn't receive the ball then what the Fack does Sanchez do as the striker if the number 10 can't get him the ball?
He does walk around waiting for the ball, he goes into MF and gets it
posted on 19/12/16
He *doesnt
posted on 19/12/16
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 19/12/16
What a stupid excuse stating the rest of team needs to get the ball to Ozil before he can do something.
Why doesn't the lazy, arrogant twaat fight for the ball and then create some magic. We paid so much for him and he's on such high wages, expect much more from him
posted on 19/12/16
What is unforgivable is lack of effort.
posted on 19/12/16
I'm firmly in the camp of accepting that Ozil will always be a defensive liability and that the manager should select which games he plays in accordingly.
In the modern game, poacher strikers have been phased out because they don't contribute anything to the build-up. In the same way, languid no.10s have also been phased out because they don't contribute enough in the defensive phase. Ozil is a throwback player, a "poacher" no.10 who's only interested in the final pass or finish. On paper he plays as the furthest forward of a midfield 3 but in reality, because he doesn't get goalside of the opposition deepest midfielder, he often leaves his team outnumbered 3 vs 2 in the middle. The same problem you have when you field a 4-4-2. Which is why the 4-4-2 is outdated and no longer used by the upper tier teams.
Much like you can get away with playing a poacher like Hernandez or Gomez in a lot of league games against weaker opposition, you can also afford to play Ozil at no.10 in the majority of games. But in the big crunch games, where teams are increasingly better-drilled and defence is so key, it's often a disadvantage, and we may be better served keeping Ozil on the bench for such games with more of a compact 3 in midfield. This is not something revolutionary. Mourinho recognsied this deficiency at RM and often played with a more pragmatic midfield in big games. RM won 2 CL titles after selling Ozil. Bayern won the CL after replacing Gomez at CF. Ditto Utd with Van Nistelrooy. At the highest level you can simply no longer afford to carry even 1 player who leaves you short in some aspect of the game.
posted on 19/12/16
What I laugh about the ozil fan boys is that they blame everyone else for his failings. "He doesn't have enough protection behind him" "the wingers aren't making the right runs". Against a westbrom and a Bournemouth when he had time on the ball with little pressure you will see the best. Against quality oposistion like city you won't get that time and space and it is games like yesterday that your true class has to show. He's a luxury player who can play a killer through pass that is all.
posted on 19/12/16
"Ozil is a throwback player, a "poacher" no.10 who's only interested in the final pass or finish"
This is pretty much true. Ozil is a final third player. In the final third there are not many better ( I'd argue only messi) at knowing when to just play the easy pass or play the incisive pass. In my opinion this is the most important role of a number 10 and he's outstanding at it.
"On paper he plays as the furthest forward of a midfield 3 but in reality, because he doesn't get goalside of the opposition deepest midfielder, he often leaves his team outnumbered 3 vs 2 in the middle"
This does happen occasionally but on the whole ozil is fine at keeping the gaps between him and the other midfielders small enough to set us up to intercept the ball. This is one of the reasons that his distance covered stats are one of the highest for us.
In my opinion that aspect of his defensive game is fine but where he lacks is pressing with intensity after he loses the ball.
posted on 19/12/16
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 11 minutes ago
What I laugh about the ozil fan boys is that they blame everyone else for his failings. "He doesn't have enough protection behind him" "the wingers aren't making the right runs". Against a westbrom and a Bournemouth when he had time on the ball with little pressure you will see the best. Against quality oposistion like city you won't get that time and space and it is games like yesterday that your true class has to show. He's a luxury player who can play a killer through pass that is all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Our game plan yesterday was not to control possession as it is against teams like west Brom. This makes a difference to ozil's role. People are criticising Ozil based on how Silva was key for city keeping the ball, but aren't taking into account the fact that the 2 game plans were different and ours was not conducive to ozil getting loads of touches on the ball. What the game plan required was for ozil to produce the key passes on counter attacks and he did that multiple times in the first half.
Our plan was clearly not to play high up the pitch. The plan was for the midfielders and defenders to just contain by keeping the gaps small between them and then win the ball when city make a mistake and counter attack. In my opinion it was the right plan and we would've killed city off in the first half if certain players moved the ball more quickly on the counter attack (alexis was a culprit for slowing them down quite a few times).
People are saying ozil was hiding, but by that logic you would say that mahrez and vardy were hiding last season! When we don't have much possession and are not aiming to, what do you expect a player like ozil to do?
When we had the ball he was instrumental in everything we created as always. In the second half he or the whole team didn't manage to create anything but the main cause of that was our defenders and coquelin and xhaka not stringing 2 passes together so we couldn't create counter attacking openings.
When the ball did get to ozil on these counter attacks, yes his control was sometimes not up to scratch and I'm not claiming he had an amazing game, but he was surrounded by city players with few to pass the ball to. This was partly because neither coquelin or xhaka are good at getting up to support the attack.
So overall given the game plan, it was a decent performance from ozil. Outstanding in the first half but poor in the second, but his supply was extremely limited in the second half.
posted on 19/12/16
Wow is this jollywood inventor in disguise?
posted on 19/12/16
comment by Castor Troy (U8700)
posted 1 minute ago
Wow is this jollywood inventor in disguise?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nah i was dat guy welbz before.
posted on 19/12/16
Sorry jollywood, you're proving my point and making excuses for ozil. He got on the ball in the 2nd half, gave it away, shrugged his shoulders at teammates, didn't run back to try and win it. We pressed city high in the first half with Sanchez , Walcott , iwobi. It was picked out after the game by souness , Ozil was just strolling around in the first half this was also picked out.
On Vardy and mahrez they took countless of games by the neck last season particularly Mahrez who single handily won Leicester games. I'd say Theo and alexis were our most dangerous players in the first half yesterday. Enough excuses with ozil, he was pi$$ poor. As I said our next 6 fixtures you will probably see him get on the ball more and create things for us. Fans will be singing his name again , then we go to Stamford bridge hel disappear.
posted on 19/12/16
Definitely wouldn't play him at Stamford Bridge
posted on 19/12/16
What no seems to have considered is that you normally have one or two players who stay upfield a bit to try to win the ball from any clearances. That is usally Ozil for us as hes not the best defensively and he has the ability to relese the ball to players running out from defence.
But yesterday I did notice a few times he made a efensive contribution.
posted on 19/12/16
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 5 minutes ago
Sorry jollywood, you're proving my point and making excuses for ozil. He got on the ball in the 2nd half, gave it away, shrugged his shoulders at teammates, didn't run back to try and win it. We pressed city high in the first half with Sanchez , Walcott , iwobi. It was picked out after the game by souness , Ozil was just strolling around in the first half this was also picked out.
On Vardy and mahrez they took countless of games by the neck last season particularly Mahrez who single handily won Leicester games. I'd say Theo and alexis were our most dangerous players in the first half yesterday. Enough excuses with ozil, he was pi$$ poor. As I said our next 6 fixtures you will probably see him get on the ball more and create things for us. Fans will be singing his name again , then we go to Stamford bridge hel disappear.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We did press at times in the first half but it didn't seem to be the overriding plan. That seemed to be to sit back and counter. I didn't watch the post match analysis but fair enough that is poor if all the other attackers were pressing and ozil wasn't joining in.
Yes mahrez did win games for leicester, but he did it in 'moments' as leicester didn't have much possession. Yesterday our plan was to win the game by producing 'moments' without dominating possession. On the counter in the first half ozil produced several of these. One time he played a perfect one two to get alexis in behind on the right hand side and there was another time where he arrowed the ball perfectly into walcott's feet which seemed so unlikely because of the tight marking and then that nearly led to monreal getting through from walcott's touch but he was offside. There were a few more I think that I've forgotten. People are criticising him for not
My point is that given the plan we were trying to execute he did what was expected of him in the first half by producing key passes on counter attacks.
In the second half he definitely was bundled off the ball too many times but as I said it was made hard for him by the lack of support in many situations.
Whilst I would like him to work harder after he loses it, people get too caught up on this. His purpose in the team is not to win the ball back. It's to create opportunities in the final third and he consistently does that-even yesterday.
posted on 19/12/16
He got on the ball in the 2nd half, gave it away, shrugged his shoulders at teammates, didn't run back to try and win it.
--------------------------------------------
I saw that too but thought he was fed uop and complaining about the poor ball to him which was easy to pick off by the defender.
posted on 19/12/16
jollywood.
Be careful you are talking sense most of the jokers on here don't understand football let alone tactics.
posted on 19/12/16
Yeah neither do ex footballers
posted on 19/12/16
comment by Castor Troy (U8700)
posted 8 minutes ago
Yeah neither do ex footballers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The ex footballers on tv tend to be overly dramatic because of trying to provide entertainment
posted on 19/12/16
Also when it comes to ozil I think some find his style annoying as he makes it look too easy. All these British pundits are obsessed with players showing 'desire'. That's probably the most used word on sky sports
Page 3 of 4