Charles Watts says pressure is mounting on Mikel Arteta after dropping Mesut Ozil

Submitted by content on Sat, 01/23/2021 - 06:18

Goal.com’s Arsenal correspondent Charles Watts believes the pressure is mounting on Gunners boss Mikel Arteta after he took the decision to drop Mesut Ozil from the Premier League squad altogether. The German fell out-of-favour for the Gunners during the backend of the campaign and the trend has continued this term where he has not been registered to play for them in any competition.

Arteta emphasised that the decision was taken by him without any influence and that has come on to haunt him with the Gunners lacking the creativity in the final third of the pitch. The north London side have managed to score just 10 goals in 11 league games and their scoring form has been dreadful over the past seven matches where they have failed to score on five occasions.

Hence, the pressure of dropping Ozil appears to be mounting on Arteta as per Watts, he said: “When you decide to drop a player like Mesut Ozil and not even register him in a Premier League squad, you need to get results to avoid real scrutiny of that issue. Now Arsenal aren’t getting results, but worst of all, they’re not creating chances and they’re the worst in the Premier League in terms of creating chances, that decision to omit Mesut Ozil from the Premier League squad is always going to come back to haunt him and that’s what it’s doing right now. The pressure is going to mount on Mikel Arteta over Mesut Ozil. The demand for [Ozil to return] is only going to snowball the more and more Arsenal struggle and the longer this creativity problem goes on.”
The Spaniard has witnessed the Gunners make their worst-ever start to a Premier League campaign, but he continues to retain the complete faith of the club’s hierarchy. However, he may not have the backing for an extended period of time and reports claim that he has been given a deadline of three league matches to improve the club’s results. The Gunners are currently 15th on the table with just 13 points the board. They are winless in the past four matches.