Mesut Ozil has reportedly been left out of Arsenal’s 25-man Premier League squad submitted on Tuesday, leaving the big-money outcast facing the prospect of never featuring for the Gunners again.
The writing was already on the wall for Ozil, 32, after he was omitted from Mikel Arteta’s UEFA Europa League squad last week, and the Spaniard has reportedly now made the same decision on the domestic front, meaning the German World Cup winner will be consigned to the sidelines until January at least.
Ozil has not kicked a ball in competitive action for Arsenal since play resumed after the Covid-19 hiatus in March, despite being the Gunners’ highest earner on £350,000 a week.
He reportedly picked up an £8 million loyalty bonus at the end of September as part of the deal which runs until next summer, but has never seemed further from Arteta’s plans despite initially getting a run in the team when the Spaniard took over from Unai Emery last December.
Observers have pointed to Ozil being ill-suited to the high-intensity pressing game that Arteta is attempting to install at the club, despite the faded star once being one of the preeminent playmakers of his generation, helping Germany to the World Cup in 2014 before quitting the national team in a bitter racism row after the failure in Russia four years later.
Ozil, who joined Arsenal from Real Madrid in 2013, was linked to a potential exit from the Emirates this summer but insisted he will stay and fight for his place. In reality, the astronomical wages that the midfield star commands would also be a barrier to any club aiming to secure his services before he potentially leaves as a free agent in the summer of 2021.
