Big Willie wrote:
Clrnc wrote:
We can't split a signing to 2 parts of his career though. We can only judge it as a whole. So overall costs to performance ratio, considering he was inconsistent in the first part and totally neglible in the 2nd part of his careers for people who like to split it, he wasn't a positive signing. Certainly wasn't the signing people expected us to elevate us to another level himself.
Of course you can split up the signing to two parts of his career. It's exactly how we judge Arsene as well, first by our glory years then by the poverty youth team years and the negligent Mustafi/Cech years. You can definitely take different periods of a players career separately when judging their career whilst still being able to comment on their overall effect on the team.
Ozil, whilst being a huge disappointment in the last couple of years, was instrumental in much of our best football alongside Sanchez, Cazorla and Ramsey during the barren years and was important breaking our longstanding run without a trophy in our winning 3 FA Cups. Regardless of what has happened over the last 2 or 3 years, his influence and impact on our team in those days was important. Let's not rewrite history shall we?
Do I agree that he was an important signing for us that pushed us to winning some silverware? Yes. Do I think we'd have had a better chance by upgrading Giroud instead? Also yes. Do I believe we'd have been better off not signing Ozil at all, that's a definite no.
This is a bit off topic by now but still fun to discuss since he's leaving 😆
Instrumental is a bit strong. He was part of a jigsaw, but not the key piece. He was extremely inconsistent and famously went MIA (be it by performance or random non injury absence) whenever the going gets tough. For 45m, if you looked back at the transfer thread everyone thought he would lift us up to another level. He couldn't, he is not a player you can build a team around, but only can surround him with the right jigsaw to bring his performance level up. If you fit him with crap he can't perform. Don't want to compare to Sanchez but Alexis was on another level, that kind of impact was worth every single cent.
Ozil was always a very divisive figure even in the first part of this career so we can't even say he was superb in the first spell. Just to answer your Wenger analogy, Wenger was godlike in that first spell.
Anyway the key question for me is overall was he as much of a success to justify that 45m fee bringing him in? No. Was he what we needed desperately at that time? No. Was he a signing I would have made if he was available? Yes of course. That kind of reputation, that kind of quality before he joined everyone would have made that signing 10/10. But the opportunity cost of bringing him in, the subsequent non impact and the subsequent 350k salary that dragged us down so much can't be ignored. With a proper striker we would have had a much better chance of winning more important trophies with so many playmakers those days. It's not a question of better off not signing Ozil, and we certainly couldnt have signed Ozil + striker. It was either a striker or Ozil.
