Arsenal 2020/21 - General Discussion

duffer said:
I don't really have any sympathy but it is strange to see him being frozen out like this when there's still a ton of far worse players getting minutes or even spots on the bench at Arsenal.

What did he do?
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Popular opinion says he's too lazy to get into this team, but I don't buy that (anymore). IMO he was frozen out after he made comments he made in Dec 2019 criticizing China's treatment of Uighur Muslims and the club didn't back him or want to get involved.
Under Emery, yes, I believe that he was a 'luxury player' and didn't work hard enough overall. But Arteta supposedly gave everyone a clean slate when he arrived. Except, as it turns out, Ozil. We are much better defensively as a unit now but are sorely lacking creativity in midfield. It is hard to believe that he cannot compete with the likes of Ceballos, Xhaka, Elneny, Willock, Willian, Nelson. Not exactly a strong field. It is a shame, as the arrival of Partey and the team being much more organised could potentially unlock the Ozil of old.
 
FootyGirl88 said:
Ozil having to pay Gunnersaurus wages, Arsenal need to have a look in the mirror.
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Mastadon said:
This more expensive reincarnation of Winston Bogarde is not someone to praise. He’s being paid 350k a week to do nothing, he’s not taking a pay cut like the rest of the squad and he’s a bum.
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Maybe you shouldn't have made stuff redundant and then splashed £45m on a new player then, if you're so desperate for cash that you can't afford to pay your players?

Abhorrent lack of morals from your club and Ozil is completely in the right not to help them out.
 
RoyH1 said:
Sevilla now joining in on the Gunnersaurus banter

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dreams do come true. Welcome, <a href="https://twitter.com/Gunnersaurus?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@Gunnersaurus</a>! ⚪ <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AnnounceGunnersaurus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#AnnounceGunnersaurus</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DeadlineDay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#DeadlineDay</a> <a href="https://t.co/2xlJ0WWRnA">https://t.co/2xlJ0WWRnA</a> <a href="https://t.co/yxFDMr4yry">pic.twitter.com/yxFDMr4yry</a></p>&mdash; Sevilla FC (@SevillaFC_ENG) <a href="">October 5, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Why's Sevilla wading into the banter?
 
NinjaFletch said:
Maybe you shouldn't have made stuff redundant and then splashed £45m on a new player then, if you're so desperate for cash that you can't afford to pay your players?

Abhorrent lack of morals from your club and Ozil is completely in the right not to help them out.
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It’s the clubs prerogative to add or reduce staff as they see fit. Football clubs are businesses and redundancies happen in business during a downturn. If the club sees fit to spend 45m in order to chase CL football it’s their decision. Right or wrong will be determined by the outcome here.

Özil is free to sit on his 350k contract doing his best Winston Bogarde impression. The club made a terrible mistake giving him that contract in the first place so they have to live with it but you don’t have to be a genius to understand why the fans are not happy with our highest paid player doing nothing and not even trying.
 
Mastadon said:
It’s the clubs prerogative to add or reduce staff as they see fit. Football clubs are businesses and redundancies happen in business during a downturn. If the club sees fit to spend 45m in order to chase CL football it’s their decision. Right or wrong will be determined by the outcome here.

Özil is free to sit on his 350k contract doing his best Winston Bogarde impression. The club made a terrible mistake giving him that contract in the first place so they have to live with it but you don’t have to be a genius to understand why the fans are not happy with our highest paid player doing nothing and not even trying.
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Yes, and I'm free to say that making people redundant during a global pandemic whilst spending millions on players is a damning indictment of the people that own your club.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of other clubs that have failed on this front too (your rivals, a notable example too; and I think there is no excuse for United not to be a living wage employer), but if you're going to act like a ruthless, soulless business then there's no moral position to argue that Ozil should treat you like anything but that.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Yes, and I'm free to say that making people redundant during a global pandemic whilst spending millions on players is a damning indictment of the people that own your club.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of other clubs that have failed on this front too (your rivals, a notable example too; and I think there is no excuse for United not to be a living wage employer), but if you're going to act like a ruthless, soulless business then there's no moral position to argue that Ozil should treat you like anything but that.
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Do you expect football clubs to pay people a salary even when their services are no longer required? Should people who work for football clubs get jobs for life and be paid salaries no matter what? Is it morally unacceptable for football clubs to make people redundant?

What does that any of this have to do with Mesut Bogarde sitting around doing nothing and earning 350k a week anyway?
 
Mastadon said:
It’s the clubs prerogative to add or reduce staff as they see fit. Football clubs are businesses and redundancies happen in business during a downturn. If the club sees fit to spend 45m in order to chase CL football it’s their decision. Right or wrong will be determined by the outcome here.

Özil is free to sit on his 350k contract doing his best Winston Bogarde impression. The club made a terrible mistake giving him that contract in the first place so they have to live with it but you don’t have to be a genius to understand why the fans are not happy with our highest paid player doing nothing and not even trying.
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So the club is free to act as they see fit, but Ozil isn't? Also, he's not doing nothing by choice. I'm sure he would be happy to play if given the chance, but the managers aren't playing him. Last I checked I don't think he's been not showing up to training or anything like that, so how is he not even trying?
 
Mastadon said:
Do you expect football clubs to pay people a salary even when their services are no longer required? Should people who work for football clubs get jobs for life and be paid salaries no matter what? Is it morally unacceptable for football clubs to make people redundant?

What does that any of this have to do with Mesut Bogarde sitting around doing nothing and earning 350k a week anyway?
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You really don't see an issue with a football club that's worth billions, and rakes in hundreds upon hundreds of millions each year in earnings, making employees, whose wages probably aren't even a drop in the water for their earnings, redundant during a global pandemic where many people are struggling to keep food on the table and keep the lights on? You genuinely will take the side of the football club rolling in money in a situation like this?
 
Everyone talks as if they have 100% knowledge of the situation.

How do you know that the redundancy package from Arsenal isn't very good?

My own work are offering a 4 month redundancy package, which is way above government requirements in some situations. An Arsenal redundancy package could be a year or two year scheme, who knows. Maybe some people volunteered for it so they can spend time with children instead etc.

Who knows.. nobody is the answer.
 
Cloud7 said:
So the club is free to act as they see fit, but Ozil isn't? Also, he's not doing nothing by choice. I'm sure he would be happy to play if given the chance, but the managers aren't playing him. Last I checked I don't think he's been not showing up to training or anything like that, so how is he not even trying?
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I literally said he’s free to sit on his 350k contract doing nothing.
 
I have no problem with Ozil. He said it many times he feels good and ready but it is the coach not picking him. It is not his fault. He always plays the same way so it is not like he played very hard to earn his contract then drop his performance after like Adebayor.
 
Mastadon said:
Do you expect football clubs to pay people a salary even when their services are no longer required? Should people who work for football clubs get jobs for life and be paid salaries no matter what? Is it morally unacceptable for football clubs to make people redundant?

What does that any of this have to do with Mesut Bogarde sitting around doing nothing and earning 350k a week anyway?
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As, I say, fine defend your club with hard nosed capitalist rhetoric. That's your perogative. Its not what I want from my club, but if you're comfortable with it fine.

But if you want to support a business, then you have no right to complain that employees of that business are expecting you to honour the terms the contract of employment you entered into. Arsenal and Mesut Ozil entered into a contract, and he's entitled to the money you are legally obliged to pay him, even if you no longer want him on the pitch.

Either both things are true or neither are. If you want players to treat your club as something more than an employer and do you a favour and leave or take a pay cut then you have to be able to make a moral arguement that Arsenal Football Club is something more. Nobody would expect Amazon employees to bail out Bezos, and if you're arguing that all you are is an Amazon then you shouldn't expect Ozil to help you out either.

As the Partey deal has made clear you abundantly don't need the money from Ozil taking a pay cut or making staff redundant to survive, so why should Ozil be castigated for not helping you out?
 
Cloud7 said:
You really don't see an issue with a football club that's worth billions, and rakes in hundreds upon hundreds of millions each year in earnings, making employees, whose wages probably aren't even a drop in the water for their earnings, redundant during a global pandemic where many people are struggling to keep food on the table and keep the lights on? You genuinely will take the side of the football club rolling in money in a situation like this?
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Are football clubs not allowed to make redundancies? What is this issue you people seem to have with football clubs firing people I really don’t get it. If your services are no longer required you are redundant it applies to the rest of us why not to football club employees?

Do you know what those who were made redundant were doing or how much they were being paid even before commenting? I don’t know what workers did but I’m guessing their work was not needed anymore so what else is the club supposed to do? Treat them like the royal family and pay them forever?
 
NinjaFletch said:
As, I say, fine defend your club with hard nosed capitalist rhetoric. That's your perogative. Its not what I want from my club, but if you're comfortable with it fine.

But if you want to support a business, then you have no right to complain that employees of that business are expecting you to honour the terms the contract of employment you entered into. Arsenal and Mesut Ozil entered into a contract, and he's entitled to the money you are legally obliged to pay him, even if you no longer want him on the pitch.

Either both things are true or neither are. If you want players to treat your club as something more than an employer and do you a favour and leave or take a pay cut then you have to be able to make a moral arguement that Arsenal Football Club is something more. Nobody would expect Amazon employees to bail out Bezos, and if you're arguing that all you are is an Amazon then you shouldn't expect Ozil to help you out either.
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I’m commenting from the perspective of a football fan. I’ve said 3 times now that Özil is free to sit on his 350k contract and I’m free to call him a bum and voice my opinions. I don’t own Arsenal and I didn’t sign the contracts so I will criticize these things if it’s ok with you.

By the same token you are free to criticize the club for making staff redundant. I would criticize them as well but I don’t have enough info on that to do so.
 
Mastadon said:
Are football clubs not allowed to make redundancies? What is this issue you people seem to have with football clubs firing people I really don’t get it. If your services are no longer required you are redundant it applies to the rest of us why not to football club employees?

Do you know what those who were made redundant were doing or how much they were being paid even before commenting? I don’t know what workers did but I’m guessing their work was not needed anymore so what else is the club supposed to do? Treat them like the royal family and pay them forever?
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Your club is meant to act like an ethical employer as all businesses should by not laying people off in a redundancy whilst spending millions upon millions on playing staff.
So, no, not "treat them like the Royal family and pay them forever" just treat them with a tiny modicum of respect.
 
Mastadon said:
I’m commenting from the perspective of a football fan. I’ve said 3 times now that Özil is free to sit on his 350k contract and I’m free to call him a bum and voice my opinions. I don’t own Arsenal and I didn’t sign the contracts so I will criticize these things if it’s ok with you.
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And I'm free to say you're being a hypocrite when you're fine with the other stuff Arsenal are doing, but taking issue with Ozil as a 'lazy bum'.

For me, I thought we liked our clubs because we thought there was something special about them. Unfortunately, I agree, that modern football has eroded that community bond and reduced football clubs to little more than soulless corporate nothings, but I don't think there's much to celebrate there, and I think there's even less reason to tribally defend them when they give us examples of how far they've fallen.
 
NinjaFletch said:
And I'm free to say you're being a hypocrite when you're fine with the other stuff Arsenal are doing, but taking issue with Ozil as a 'lazy bum'.

For me, I thought we liked our clubs because we thought there was something special about them. Unfortunately, I agree, that modern football has eroded that community bond and reduced football clubs to little more than soulless corporate nothings, but I don't think there's much to celebrate there, and I think there's even less reason to tribally defend them when they give us examples of how far they've fallen.
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I’m not criticizing the club because I don’t know the reasons why they made those staff redundant, how much they were earning and whether the redundancies could have been avoided. I prefer not to criticize when I’m not in possession of the facts.

A football player sitting on a 350k/week contract doing absolutely nothing, not impressing in training and being poor when played is open to criticism.
 
Mastadon said:
I’m not criticizing the club because I don’t know the reasons why they made those staff redundant, how much they were earning and whether the redundancies could have been avoided. I prefer not to criticize when I’m not in possession of the facts.

A football player sitting on a 350k/week contract doing absolutely nothing, not impressing in training and being poor when played is open to criticism.
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Well given you spent £70m on transfers (not including whatever Willian cost as a 'free transfer'), I think we know the answer. Saving whatever drop in the ocean not having Gunnersaurus saves in wages on the payroll until fans are back strikes as a particularly callous move.

I hate to say it, but at least Liverpool fans were outraged when their club fecked up and forced them to row back on the mistake.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Well given you spent £70m on transfers (not including whatever Willian cost as a 'free transfer'), I think we know the answer. Saving whatever drop in the ocean not having Gunnersaurus saves in wages on the payroll until fans are back strikes as a particularly callous move.

I hate to say it, but at least Liverpool fans were outraged when their club fecked up and forced them to row back on the mistake.
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Gunnersaurus is a match day mascot and there have been no match days for half a year with no end in sight. What do you expect the club to do with Gunnersaurus?
 
Mastadon said:
Gunnersaurus is a match day mascot and there have been no match days for half a year with no end in sight. What do you expect the club to do with Gunnersaurus?
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Continue to employ him until matches start, it's not his fault matches aren't happening, and you can obviously afford to. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's what the other 19 clubs in the league have managed to do? Or, at the very least, have been smart enough to realise how bad it looks to do that on the same day they spend tens of millions of pounds on a player.

But, as I have repeatedly said, if you want to defend it with that line of reasoning fine, but you have absolutely no right whatsoever to demand anything of Ozil. You've decided what you're happy with your club being, and you should therefore accept how that means players should treat you.
 
Mastadon said:
Hes not playing because his performances have been sh*t. His stats have been awful for a player who lives and dies by his ability to create assists hes not bothered anymore. At least Sanchez still wanted to play football and was willing to move for it nobody wants Ozil we literally couldn’t give him away. Speaks volumes for his ability as supposedly a top class playmaker on top class salaries that nobody wants him.
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He was shit yet created the 2nd most key passes for them in the Prem last season, despite just playing 18 games (in xA he was 5th I think). His performances sure weren't great, I'm not even going to argue that, but he was still starting every game under Arteta up until the pandemic break. During the break, he went against the board, for which he was ratted out by them, and from then on hasn't seen minute of play. It has very little to do with his performances but rather a lot more with how the board want him gone from the team, and are trying as much as they ca, including dirty PR sh*t like leaking his name for not accepting the pay cut.
 
hasanejaz88 said:
He was shit yet created the 2nd most key passes for them in the Prem last season, despite just playing 18 games (in xA he was 5th I think). His performances sure weren't great, I'm not even going to argue that, but he was still starting every game under Arteta up until the pandemic break. During the break, he went against the board, for which he was ratted out by them, and from then on hasn't seen minute of play. It has very little to do with his performances but rather a lot more with how the board want him gone from the team, and are trying as much as they ca, including dirty PR sh*t like leaking his name for not accepting the pay cut.
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Even if he has zero assist he is still under legally binded contract. Lots of clubs has issue move on unwanted player too, not just arsenal. Man Utd, and even Everton have lots of players "doing nothing". As long as these players train hard and ready to be select I am fine. You can't on one side begging in demand/on form players to stay and respect their contracts, on the other hand accused the "unwanted" players "lazy". It has no class.

Edit
With the arrival of Partey, Arteta may switch back to 433 with Xhaka & Partey as CMs, then may be Ozil can get back to the team compete the spot with Cabellos.
 
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NinjaFletch said:
Continue to employ him until matches start, it's not his fault matches aren't happening, and you can obviously afford to. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's what the other 19 clubs in the league have managed to do? Or, at the very least, have been smart enough to realise how bad it looks to do that on the same day they spend tens of millions of pounds on a player.

But, as I have repeatedly said, if you want to defend it with that line of reasoning fine, but you have absolutely no right whatsoever to demand anything of Ozil. You've decided what you're happy with your club being, and you should therefore accept how that means players should treat you.
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I fail to see what criticizing a player for being a waste of money and a bum has to do with the club making redundancies but you do you and I will do me.There is still a small chance that Özil might come good this season so the door is never closed as far as I’m concerned.
 
Mastadon said:
Gunnersaurus is a match day mascot and there have been no match days for half a year with no end in sight. What do you expect the club to do with Gunnersaurus?
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I think the worst thing about this is the timing and the way the club are going about these redundancies.

As @Nish115 mentioned, no one knows the true reasoning or indeed the redundancy packages that are being rolled out.
Are they getting a few months in wages? Does it facilitate a smoother way to benefits and insurances? Is there handshake agreements in place that when match day revenue returns so will those who’ve lost jobs due to the fact there is no job to do.

Like I’ve said, I hate the way the club are going about it given the owners financial position, but I understand it from the perspective of, “well, your job is to pull pints or dish out pies, or crowd control, or concierge services, parking control, dance around in front of fans etc..”

None of those people are being brought in for match days, and no club is paying for services that aren’t making a positive return. Edit, except us with Ozil..

As to the point regarding Ozil being entitled to his reactions and opinions to this, he’s an employee and shouldn’t be diss-ing his employer publicly in any way.

No one made this much fuss when we let Wilshire go!!
 
hasanejaz88 said:
He was shit yet created the 2nd most key passes for them in the Prem last season, despite just playing 18 games (in xA he was 5th I think). His performances sure weren't great, I'm not even going to argue that, but he was still starting every game under Arteta up until the pandemic break. During the break, he went against the board, for which he was ratted out by them, and from then on hasn't seen minute of play. It has very little to do with his performances but rather a lot more with how the board want him gone from the team, and are trying as much as they ca, including dirty PR sh*t like leaking his name for not accepting the pay cut.
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It is surprising that he hasn’t made the bench ahead of guys like Willock at least. I believe that Arteta would have included him in match day squads if he was doing well in training but there is no way to know for sure why he’s been frozen out so badly. I think the fact that we can’t give him away while United managed to offload a very poor version of Sanchez on higher wages speaks a lot about his current status in football.
 
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Mastadon said:
Are football clubs not allowed to make redundancies? What is this issue you people seem to have with football clubs firing people I really don’t get it. If your services are no longer required you are redundant it applies to the rest of us why not to football club employees?

Do you know what those who were made redundant were doing or how much they were being paid even before commenting? I don’t know what workers did but I’m guessing their work was not needed anymore so what else is the club supposed to do? Treat them like the royal family and pay them forever?
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Mastadon said:
I’m commenting from the perspective of a football fan. I’ve said 3 times now that Özil is free to sit on his 350k contract and I’m free to call him a bum and voice my opinions. I don’t own Arsenal and I didn’t sign the contracts so I will criticize these things if it’s ok with you.

By the same token you are free to criticize the club for making staff redundant. I would criticize them as well but I don’t have enough info on that to do so.
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Mastadon said:
I’m not criticizing the club because I don’t know the reasons why they made those staff redundant, how much they were earning and whether the redundancies could have been avoided. I prefer not to criticize when I’m not in possession of the facts.

A football player sitting on a 350k/week contract doing absolutely nothing, not impressing in training and being poor when played is open to criticism.
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You wouldn’t criticise the club if it took a dump on your face.
 
I think there's a few misconceptions about Ozil and Arteta. I really don't think it's anything to do with his work ethic. Ozil was starting games under Arteta right up until lockdown, he even started in Arsenal's last game on 7th March in a 1-0 win over West Ham.

The only thing that changed between then and football restarting was Ozil's refusal to take a wage reduction, whilst the rest of the squad did on 21st April. Given that Arteta was asked by Arsenal to facilitate the meeting whereby players were asked to take a wage cut, he may have seen Ozil's reluctance as a slight against the team or the Arsenal hierarchy are retaliating by forcing Arteta not to play him.

With regards to the redundancies on 5th August, I believe they were motivated by a general 'cost cutting' facilitated by the Kroenke's lawyer Tim Lewis, appointed 1st July. However, the reason cited for most was the financial impact of Covid-19 which is why it's unacceptable to recruit players for millions whilst crying poverty.

BUT, I don't it's fair to hold football to a higher standard than other businesses. I think the sad reality is that clubs are just that nowadays, a business. The difference is, most businesses don't have millions of customers checking the news about them every day and analysing every impact of those decisions.
 
xonyo said:
I think there's a few misconceptions about Ozil and Arteta. I really don't think it's anything to do with his work ethic. Ozil was starting games under Arteta right up until lockdown, he even started in Arsenal's last game on 7th March in a 1-0 win over West Ham.

The only thing that changed between then and football restarting was Ozil's refusal to take a wage reduction, whilst the rest of the squad did on 21st April. Given that Arteta was asked by Arsenal to facilitate the meeting whereby players were asked to take a wage cut, he may have seen Ozil's reluctance as a slight against the team or the Arsenal hierarchy are retaliating by forcing Arteta not to play him.
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Didn't three players in total not accept the wage cut? Only Ozil's name was leaked but I think there were 3 in total.
 
Question for Arsenal fans. How many genuinely impressive performances have Arsenal put in under Arteta so far? To me when I;ve seen Arsenal play against sides outside the 'big six' they've been largely unimpressive.
 
hasanejaz88 said:
Didn't three players in total not accept the wage cut? Only Ozil's name was leaked but I think there were 3 in total.
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Could be any of Ozil, Sokratis, Mustafi,Kolasinac and Torreira. All of whom the club tried to move on.
Klopper76 said:
Question for Arsenal fans. How many genuinely impressive performances have Arsenal put in under Arteta so far? To me when I;ve seen Arsenal play against sides outside the 'big six' they've been largely unimpressive.
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I think most Arsenal fans are of the opinion that the quality in this Arsenal team isn't enough to put consistent good performances. Its a cup team. I'd say we are where Utd were before Bruno arrived.
 
hasanejaz88 said:
Didn't three players in total not accept the wage cut? Only Ozil's name was leaked but I think there were 3 in total.
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I thought the club managed to negotiate with the other refusers, bar Ozil.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Continue to employ him until matches start, it's not his fault matches aren't happening, and you can obviously afford to. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's what the other 19 clubs in the league have managed to do? Or, at the very least, have been smart enough to realise how bad it looks to do that on the same day they spend tens of millions of pounds on a player.

But, as I have repeatedly said, if you want to defend it with that line of reasoning fine, but you have absolutely no right whatsoever to demand anything of Ozil. You've decided what you're happy with your club being, and you should therefore accept how that means players should treat you.
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You don't think there's a bit of opportunism from the journalists when it comes to releasing stories like this. Seems like Arsenal are the only one laying off people whole everybody else is running things normally. We have highest(along with you guys) number of non footballing staff in the country, more than double the likes City and Chelsea. 55 redundancies reduces the staff by about 10%, we still employ more than most clubs.

That audit the new board member ran must have found a few of inefficiencies in the way things were being run and couple that with fans not being around made the situation worse.

Timing of this sucks for sure and the optics of being fairly active in the transfer market while all this is going on is always going to rub things the wrong way.
Investment in the playing squad doesn't need to be directly related to the rest of staff. A ton of scouts got let go in all this as well.
 
Ozil, just like Bale and James, is too good a player sitting on bench. Too bad he can't move to another club playing football regularly.
 
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