By Rob Worthington (Senior Writer)
It is Mesut Özil's eighth and final season with Arsenal and it is almost certain the midfield icon will never play for us again. The German has has been excluded from both Mikel Arteta's Europa League and Premier League squads leaving him surplus to requirements in North London.
In response to his exclusion, Özil released a statement to the public via his social media on the matter. He claims Arsenal have shown him a lack of "loyalty' which "saddens" him. This was never supposed to be the way it ended for him at Arsenal. However, his exclusion is representative of a final nail in battered coffin. It's time to move on.
There's no point calling for Arsenal to re-consider as they straightforwardly can't. Mikel Arteta has submitted his squads for this season and that cannot be changed until January. Nonetheless, it wouldn't seem Arsenal plan to re-evaluate their decision in a couple of months. It appears Arsenal's relationship with Özil is beyond repair.
Why? It's unclear. However, speculating won't help anybody. Every time I see a new hypothesis regarding Özil I feel myself tiring. It's unnecessary and quite frankly a waste of time. We all need to move on.
And as we on this website have portrayed on many occasions, suggestions that Özil would improve our current Arsenal team aren't well grounded. He's not the player he was in 2016. He'd likely not make us a more creative side.
So let's end the debate. Let's stop attacking the club for their decision to omit Özil Let's stop dividing our fanbase.
It shouldn't be Özil supporting Arsenal fans against non-supporting Özil Arsenal fans. It should be all Arsenal fans united behind our wonderfully talented manager, Mikel Arteta, who wants to take our club back to where it belongs. Support him. Don't waste your time on a player who is never going to play for Arsenal again.
I'd like to conclude this piece by thanking Mesut Özil for eight years of wonderful service. He's one of the greatest to have donned the Arsenal shirt and it was a privilege to see him make the most of his prime footballing years at Arsenal. He may not be the same player he was five years ago, but, as I mentioned in the first sentence of his piece, he's an icon. Football royalty.
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