Kanté was on the market this summer, by the way. We absolutely should have moved for him and sent the dud back to France. We're effectively wasting a starting spot in each game on a grafter who can't graft properly.

If we signed Kanté, he would have been underwhelming too and not solved any of our issues.

People need to realize the issue is none other than the French dude in the long coat.

Since we last won a major title, we had 3 different squads built by the same manager, ALL failed in the exact same manner.

Players have come and gone, squads have been changed and rebuilt over and over, but there has been one constant over the failure years, and that's the manager.

About time everyone realized this.

Klaus wrote:

"Two poor guys" my ass. Neither of them are pulling their weight.  They literally only have one job to do and they can't do it. They're far more responsible for his poor form than the other way around.

This must be some sort of joke. Our 2 CMs are more responsible for Ozil's poor form. Yes sure.

They're responsible for getting the ball to the attack and they can't bloody pass a football between them. Of course they're responsible for our breakdown. What is this - crazy town? They're a fraction as skilled, but we should bench the bloke who can make a difference because the ones who can't need more protection, even though it's their job to provide it in the first place and they're failing miserably at it. Our central midfielders were outpassed by Petr Cech against City and made 2 successful tackles out of 22 in the last two games, but we lost because Özil played as a #10. This whole conversation is unreal.

Nah mate, sell Özil.

Look we have problems in central midfield and nobody has said we lost because of Ozil alone. Cech made more passes than anyone. It's obvious from the history of your posts that you don't like Xhaka and Coquelin. You've prematurely written of the former. To say they are more responsible for Ozil's poor form is a ridiculous statement. We are no longer talking about the game here but apportioning blame for one players poor form to others. No one is responsible for Ozil's laissez-faire attitude, careless passing and finishing but himself. He is the biggest passenger in the team at the moment.

Yeah he's the biggest passenger but still had the second highest pass completion rate in the team against City despite playing in a more advanced position

What after Cech? Clearly pass completion rate is a great measure of work ethic

General wrote:

You've prematurely written of the former.

I haven't written off anyone. I've just said that he plays like an asshole at the moment. As for Coquelin, he's a water carrier who can't carry water. Feel free to explain what he's good for when he can't even tackle and defend and gets outmuscled by Sterling on the ball.

Jesus fucking christ, this place sometimes.

Klaus what exactly is your point because you are digressing. Everybody knows we have problems in midfield. Xhaka hasn't been great and Coquelin is being asked to execute a game that's leaving us exposed. This is not in doubt. The statement that the midfield is largely responsible for Ozil going awol is the contentious issue. There are two issues here.

All three have been complete shit vs City. Coquelin still has been the best performer out of the three in 16/17 and while playing poorly couldn't be faulted for lack of effort. Xhaka has played about 15 games for us so far, at that stage in Özil's career we were (correctly) defending him against the onslaught by the British media after going through a poor spell.

What's Özil's excuse? He's got a decent scoring run going but has been poor all season really. One thing to perform poorly but another to not even try and Özil has a history of doing this.

General wrote:

Klaus what exactly is your point because you are digressing. Everybody knows we have problems in midfield. Xhaka hasn't been great and Coquelin is being asked to execute a game that's leaving us exposed. This is not in doubt. The statement that the midfield is largely responsible for Ozil going awol is the contentious issue. There are two issues here.

I am yet to be convinced that dropping Ozil for an inferior player will improve us.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/who-scored-blog/2016/dec/21/mesut-ozil-arsenal-defence-alexis-sanchez-arsene-wenger?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Hull have a team of 10 hard working cloggers and it's reflected in their league position.

This analysis of our loss to city is also quite eye-opening as we sometimes get caught up in the blame game.
http://spielverlagerung.com/2016/12/20/city-in-comeback-win-with-dominant-2nd-half/

I don't think we should drop Ozil but we cannot afford to continue playing him as #10 in view of his poor form and continued issues in midfield. I appreciate he is still a top player and can make a contribution but if we have to play him out wide or in CM then so be it.

Bold Tone wrote:

General wrote:

Klaus what exactly is your point because you are digressing. Everybody knows we have problems in midfield. Xhaka hasn't been great and Coquelin is being asked to execute a game that's leaving us exposed. This is not in doubt. The statement that the midfield is largely responsible for Ozil going awol is the contentious issue. There are two issues here.

I am yet to be convinced that dropping Ozil for an inferior player will improve us.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/who-scored-blog/2016/dec/21/mesut-ozil-arsenal-defence-alexis-sanchez-arsene-wenger?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Hull have a team of 10 hard working cloggers and it's reflected in their league position.

This analysis of our loss to city is also quite eye-opening as we sometimes get caught up in the blame game.
http://spielverlagerung.com/2016/12/20/city-in-comeback-win-with-dominant-2nd-half/

I appreciate the analysis and I tried to read through some it but we relinquished control of this game through some basic elementary mistakes. City really should've been level at half time as we failed to track Sterling's run shortly after scoring. In both goals, their players were allowed to receive and hit a pass unchallenged and we were so passive it was unreal. There is a basic rule in football that if a player receives a ball with his back to goal, you press them and don't allow them to turn. We failed at the basics and came out after half time looking punch drunk.

General wrote:

I don't think we should drop Ozil but we cannot afford to continue playing him as #10 in view of his poor form and continued issues in midfield. I appreciate he is still a top player and can make a contribution but if we have to play him out wide or in CM then so be it.

That makes sense and he should work harder than the pathetic effort he put in last game. 

I think the number 10 role is not defined by how Ozil has been playing it this season.
He was great playing the role from deep last season but, with Cazorla out, we should have put him there.
I don't think the extra 5 goals he will get this season is more valuable than the extra assists he provides from deep.
I don't see merit in him out wide as Wenger's system needs the wide player to help in defence and even Alexis exposed Monreal last season the same way Iwobi has been this season.

Wenger is the one holding us back, and yet he is probably one of the biggest pulls for Ozil and Sanchez staying. Mad really.

General wrote:

What after Cech? Clearly pass completion rate is a great measure of work ethic

After Gabriel.

What the fuck does work ethic have to do with it? You do realise that the most fundamental skill that contributes to winning football games is being able to receive the ball and pass it to a player in the same shirt? The stats show that Özil, even though he had a poor game, did this better than anyone else in the front six. Don't let facts get in the way of your opinions though.

One of the main problems is that Sanchez is looking to pass from deep, while Ozil is running in behind. It's a crazy system really, but that's what they have worked out.

Gurgen wrote:

General wrote:

What after Cech? Clearly pass completion rate is a great measure of work ethic

After Gabriel.

What the fuck does work ethic have to do with it? You do realise that the most fundamental skill that contributes to winning football games is being able to receive the ball and pass it to a player in the same shirt? The stats show that Özil, even though he had a poor game, did this better than anyone else in the front six. Don't let facts get in the way of your opinions though.

Ozil had a poor game which you agree. I'm not going to waste by breadth arguing over the pointless details. So he completed 6more passes than Xhaka. Big deal.