The Last Artist in North London

Arsene Wenger always believed that football should be art. He was so dedicated to the idea that he spent his 22 years at Arsenal Football Club turning first Highbury and then the Emirates into temples of aesthetic, shrines to the beautiful game. Through players like Bergkamp, Pires, Vieira, Henry, Fabregas, Nasri, Rosicky, van Persie, Arshavin, Cazorla, Wilshere, and Ramsey, Wenger had curated a collection of some of the finest footballing tapestries in Premier League history. His teams so regularly crafted gorgeous spectacles on the pitch that Arsenal was the second-favorite team of millions around the globe. Whether it was pretty passing triangles, deft flicks around the penalty area, or triumphant bursts forward in possession, Le Prof’s teams filled north London with soulful play. In hindsight, Mesut Ozil’s arrival at Arsenal feels like the natural culmination of almost two decades of Wengerball.

Ozil was, simply, the prototypical Wenger player. One of the finest creators in all of world football, Ozil had an almost unrivaled eye for a pass. The German playmaker had cleverly split open defenses at the highest levels of the sport, identifying passes very few others would think to make and executing them with perfect weight and disguisement. Ozil was also truly remarkable at finding unoccupied pockets on the pitch between the lines, and regularly popped up in acres of space even against the best defenses. When he decided to hold onto the ball a little longer, he could access silky skills that allowed him to elude defenders with ease. These traits all combined to create a truly special playmaker who could pull sublime moments out of nowhere. His seemingly languid manner of covering the pitch was the cherry on top, making the extraordinary feats he pulled off look effortless. Ozil was one of the game’s purest artists; everything he did was gorgeous, but only when given the freedom to express himself. It was never a surprise that Arsene Wenger was so taken with him.

Ozil arrived at the club on the final day of the 2013 summer transfer window. Arsenal had just managed a 1-0 victory in the North London Derby against a Spurs side that were throwing around the millions they had earned from cashing in on Gareth Bale. After the infamous Luis Suarez debacle and a failed attempt to sign Gonzalo Higuain, Arsenal worryingly looked to be resting on their laurels while their rivals strengthened. Accordingly, the press inquired of Wenger after the match whether there would be reinforcements. The coy face he made while giving his answer has since become a meme, as it would later be revealed that the manager knew the day of the match that Ozil’s arrival was imminent.

After years of being almost bullied into parting with club talismans and desperately waving away the label of being a selling club, Arsenal had made a statement signing. They had broken their transfer record for one of the finest players in the world, and with his prime still ahead of him. Arsenal were still one of the big boys, still in the mix for the Premier League title. They could still attract the biggest names in the game, and they could still afford them. Arsenal fans unitedly rejoiced in a manner not seen since.

Ozil’s debut ended with him providing his first assist, putting it on a platter for Olivier Giroud. His first season at Arsenal ended with the first trophy the club had won in almost a decade, as well as the honor of being Arsenal’s top assister in the league. Ozil would repeat the personal feat during the 2015-16 season, when he came painfully close to matching Thierry Henry’s Premier League assist record as Arsenal mounted a title challenge, as well as during the 2017-18 season, when he shared the honors with Aaron Ramsey. He would go on to help Wenger and Arsenal win three FA Cups in four years. Under Arsene Wenger’s management, the German playmaker was involved in spectacular moments like his goal against Ludogorets, the amazing 3-0 smash-and-grab against Manchester United, and the “winter wonderland” game against Liverpool. Although there were moments when Ozil genuinely went missing, he also orchestrated some of the most artful moments of the Wenger era. Even now, he is still the second-highest chance creator in the Premier League since he arrived, only bettered by Christian Eriksen.

But Ozil’s time under Wenger never led to the kind of success the two intended to achieve together. Even after the arrival of Alexis Sanchez, with whom Ozil formed a dynamic duo, the scintillating attacking talent Arsenal boasted was continually undone by shocking defensive lapses and an infuriating lack of a Plan B when using Giroud as an offensive fulcrum didn’t work. Eventually, Alexis’ ambition led him to force a move to United. According to rumors, Ozil wasn’t far behind. The two were in regular contact, aware of combined leverage the two could wield together. Terrified of the potential fallout from losing their two best players in quick succession, Arsenal chucked a millstone of a contract at Ozil. For over a third of a million pounds a week, he obliged. Wenger himself would eventually reveal that he felt regret the moment the deal was made. But with Alexandre Lacazette already at the club and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang having arrived the day Ozil’s extension was announced in January 2018, there was hope that Arsenal could continue forward without Alexis. Unfortunately, Ozil’s circumstances were about to change for the worse.

At the end of the 2017-2018 season, Arsene Wenger left the club. After years of underperforming, Arsenal’s sixth-place finish that season was the straw that broke the club hierarchy’s back. The greatest manager in the club’s history was essentially asked to leave. The man who had allowed Ozil to be an artist, who had given him extra days off, who had tried to support and encourage him instead of being hard on him, who had even allowed him and his family to stay with the Wengers the day of his debut, was gone. Ozil would have to fend for himself in a club that was restructuring and rebuilding its identity. The game’s greatest curator had exited the building.

Almost from the moment of Wenger’s departure, Ozil has found himself in one tumultuous position after another. In the summer of 2018, Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan became the targets of racist statements from the German Football Association and biting criticism across their home nation after being seen chatting with Recep Erdogan at the London Four Seasons Hotel. The abuse got worse after the German national team crashed out of the group stage of that summer’s World Cup. Ozil’s allegiance to Germany was publicly questioned, and not even his teammates came to his aid. The maelstrom of bigotry and right-wing propaganda during this summer concluded with Ozil retiring from Die Mannschaft, publishing a letter explaining how his family’s Turkish ancestry compelled him to be respectful of Erdogan even if he didn’t agree with the Turkish President’s policies, and how the German FA had made Ozil feel that he was “German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose”. At the age of 29, he had been forced to pull the plug on his international career under the most depressing of circumstances.

Back at Arsenal, Unai Emery was brought in as the head coach, not as manager. It was a pointed repurposing of Wenger’s old role in order to prevent successors from controlling the direction of the club as much as the Frenchman had. Where Wenger had nurtured creativity and allowed players to express themselves, Emery was more of a reactionary tactician. The Spaniard chopped and changed the squad frequently, often leaving Ozil out for matches which Emery felt would require more physicality and defense. Emery viewed intensity as the central quality he wanted to instill in his squad and often made it known to Ozil that he felt the German lacked this trait. This, along with Emery allegedly telling Ozil not to get carried away after a spectacular showing against Leicester, caused a rift between the two. After months of rumored rowing and conflict, Emery supposedly told Ozil he was free to leave at the beginning of 2019. Eventually, Ozil was entirely ostracized from the squad during the 2019-20 season, only reincorporated near the end of Emery’s tenure in a desperate attempt to end the tailspin he had plunged the team into. But with the likes of Wilshere, Cazorla, and Ramsey all having been let go, Ozil was left with the entirety of the creative burden. He failed to work his magic, and Emery was soon sacked.

Just before the start of the 2019-20 season, Ozil, along with his wife and teammate Sead Kolasinac, were the victims of an attempted carjacking. Kolasinac famously fought off knife-wielding goons with his bare hands before he and Ozil took refuge in a Turkish diner and waited for police response. Ozil and Kolasinac were both given time off to return to Germany and were granted coordinated security by Arsenal. Both were forced to miss the start of the season over concerns for their safety. But Kolasinac was reintegrated into the side faster than Ozil was.

After Emery was sacked, Freddie Ljungberg was put in charge of the first team for a few weeks as the cub searched for a permanent replacement. While the Swede deployed Ozil regularly at first, he also took a hard line with the playmaker near the end of his tenure. During a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City, Ozil was substituted off early in the second half for Emile Smith Rowe, and unable to hide his frustration, punted his gloves into the crowd as he walked to the bench. Ljungberg publicly criticized the action, and did not use the German during his final match as interim head coach. Even though Ozil was out injured for this game, Ljungberg made it clear that he would not have played even if fully fit.

During the same month as the incident with Ljungberg, Ozil went public with his denouncement of China’s persecution of Uighur Muslims. At the time, it was widely believed that over a million Uighurs had been detained in so-called “re-education camps”, and that their captors had engaged in forced sterilization of the women, among other atrocities. Ozil, a devout Muslim himself, issued a strong condemnation of the Chinese government and other Muslims who remained silent. Arsenal, with substantial business and financial interests in China, quickly scrambled to distance themselves from Ozil’s comments. They put out their own statement, proclaiming that Ozil had announced his personal opinion and that the club does not get involved in politics, effectively throwing their most prominent player under the bus. Ozil would later reveal that he had found Arsenal’s abandonment of him in this moment disappointing.

Mikel Arteta’s return, this time as head coach at Arsenal, was viewed as an opportunity for Ozil and the club to hit the reset button. Ozil and Arteta had been teammates under Wenger, and the new head coach had previously expressed a desire to play expansive attacking football. For a while, it appeared that Ozil’s troubles were behind him, and that a sympathetic figure had finally arrived to let Ozil flourish on the Emirates canvass in peace. Ozil played ten consecutive matches under that Arteta, scoring once and assisting once. His final assist came during what would end up being his final match. The German playmaker’s last contribution to the club would be heading a deflected Aubameyang shot into the path of Lacazette before the Frenchman slotted the winner into an empty far side of West Ham’s goal.

The West Ham match was the last game played by Arsenal for over three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In that time, the financial landscape of the footballing world became devastatingly bleak. Matchday revenue dried up, ticket sales no longer existed, and overheads became untenable. Arsenal, running on a self-sustaining model and not reliant on a wealthy benefactor like other top clubs, first turned to internal solutions to combat its lost income. This eventually resulted in the club hierarchy asking the squad to take a 12.5% pay cut after agreeing to a pay cut themselves. Arteta became involved in efforts to convince players to forfeit part of their wages, pitching it as an opportunity for the team to come together. The new head coach managed to convince all but three players to agree to the pay cut. One of the three who declined was Ozil, who is said to have asked for written confirmation that no one at the club would lose their job due to the fiscal difficulties created by the pandemic. Arsenal’s No. 10 was not comfortable with player contracts being changed without contacting their representatives. He wanted assurances that the money Arsenal saved from the pay cuts would not be used for any untoward purposes. However, the club were in a rush to announce a pay cut, and proceeded with doing so anyway. The other two players who refused the pay cut have not been revealed.

Ozil’s relationship with Arteta had already begun eroding due to a perceived lack of effort during training. But Arteta took Ozil’s stance regarding the pay cuts as a personal slight against him. Ozil felt that Arteta’s involvement in convincing the players to give up a portion of their salaries was inappropriate and that he should have been on their side if he had to be on a side at all. From that point on, the two barely spoke outside of pleasantries exchanged during training. After Arsenal announced 55 redundancies, Ozil adopted an “I told you so” attitude about the pay cuts, proudly reminding teammates that he had been right to refuse them. Word of this eventually reached Arteta and the club hierarchy. When the Premier League season continued during Project Restart, Ozil was unused for the remainder of the season. Arsenal won the FA Cup without him.

In October, Arteta made the decision to leave Ozil out of the Europa League and Premier League squads. While the decision was made under the cover of a bloated roster, players like Shkodran Mustafi and Calum Chambers were selected over him. In response, Ozil released a rather scathing statement. In it, he accused Arsenal of not reciprocating the loyalty he had shown to the club he loved. He said that he had felt his performances to that point under Arteta were good, and that London still felt like home. But one sentence stands out: “But then things changed, again, and I was not longer allowed to play football for Arsenal.”

In the 58 matches Mesut Ozil played after Arsene Wenger departed, he totaled 7 goals and 6 assists. It’s a disappointing return from one of the most talented players to ever grace the Premier League. But the man who brought him to the Emirates did so because he was an artist. And few artists thrive in harsh, turbulent, and practically antagonistic environments. From the moment Wenger bid adieu to Arsenal, Ozil has been beset by one controversy after another, sometimes of his own making and sometimes forced upon him. Things changed for Ozil again and again, creating inconsistency in the player’s professional life and subsequently in his output.

Many observers view Ozil as very much culpable for how his relationship with the club has soured over the past few seasons. Arsenal’s former No. 10 certainly isn’t blameless. Engaging in a passive-aggressive social media feud and with his club and publicly upstaging them by offering to pay the mascot’s wages didn’t help matters. Bragging that he was right to refuse the wage cut wasn’t productive either. But truth be told, it should have been expected. Ozil was simply doing what he had always done, be it a denouncement of injustice, a row with a manager, or an assist on the pitch. He was expressing himself, as all artists do. It was what he had done for his entire footballing career. The problem was, most of his expression in recent years had been forced to occur off the field.

Arsenal are not the club they were when Ozil arrived. They no longer are the fine art dealer of top flight football. They’re more corporate now, with an emphasis on maintaining the brand and a policy of booting associates who don’t buy in. Creativity is no longer about moments that live on in the memory, but about xG and progressive pass percentages. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just what football is now. There isn’t much room for artists if they don’t have enough successful ball recoveries per 90. Only in the most extreme cases does morality get factored in to decision-making; upgrading and problem solving is the name of the game, loyalty be damned. Just ask Frank Lampard. It has been clear for quite some time that Ozil doesn’t fit into this way of doing things. That much can be gleaned from stories of teammates expressing annoyance after Ozil played a pass in training with an unnecessary touch of flair. Unfortunately, artists are not the future of football. For the most part, players no longer express themselves. They execute a game plan.

After seven and a half years in London, Ozil has finally moved on. He will hopefully find inspiration at Fenerbahce, the club he supported as a boy. Left behind is a complex legacy, but with the club eager to achieve a rebirth, Arsenal won’t allow much more than that. The teammates he was closest to — Kolasinac, Mustafi, and Sokratis — are all being shipped out as well. Even Ozil’s jersey number will likely be given to Martin Odegaard when he begins his loan spell. But he gave us a portfolio of moments of genius, at least for a time. And now he has now gone where he can attempt to sculpt more instants of brilliance for us all to witness. Perhaps that is enough.

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