After the first two losses of the season, Arsenal went on a hot streak and many supporters of the club were overjoyed with new manager Unai Emery. Once the undefeated run ended, the Gunners came back to Earth a bit and most of the club’s fans adopted more realistic, nuanced expectations for the season.
Now, after a shocking 1-0 loss at West Ham United, plenty of supporters are expressing their discontent on social media with Unai Emery and his decision-making. A backlash against the Gunners boss is starting to grow for many reasons, most notably his questionable decision to bench a fully fit Mesut Ozil.
Ozil, the team’s highest paid player by a considerable amount, wasn’t just benched- he didn’t even make the match day squad. This came after a full week of training with the first team. Emery’s reasons for omitting Ozil have changed as the season has gone along, and none of them have been very specific or detailed.
Saturday’s media session conformed to this pattern.
“I decided the idea of the players that I think are the best for this match,” Emery responded when pressed on the omission of Ozil.
“We win with him, we lose with him. I think it is not one player (which means) we can’t win or lose. Today the players who were here are the players who deserved to be in this match. We could’ve won or lost.
“We continue working with every player because they are all important, but today the decision was to come with these players.”
Once again Emery didn’t offer much of an explanation for a decision which was quite questionable and drew the ire of Gunners supporters online. Here is just a sample of some of the tweets:
Thing is, arguably, there's no conceivable "tactical decision" that legitimately puts Mesut Ozil outside a list of 18 players for any team in the world.
— James Yorke (@jair1970) January 12, 2019
Despite training all week with the first team, Mesut Ozil has been completely left out Arsenal's match-day squad.
At least he's not on £300k a week ??? pic.twitter.com/RV7l5Z3Dh4
— Footy Accumulators (@FootyAccums) January 12, 2019
Mesut Ozil at home counting his money while the rest of his Arsenal team-mates take on West Ham #WHUARS pic.twitter.com/OjaS0xzU9c
— GOAL (@goal) January 12, 2019
https://twitter.com/AustinDarbo/status/1084092834402238465
Regardless of what the plan is for next season, regardless of contracts/etc, football is about getting results and Emery chose Iwobi/Mkhi/etc over Ramsey & Özil.
— Ahead of the Curve (@mediocentr0) January 12, 2019
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.