Actually, tactical pundits like Michael Cox, Jonathan Wilson, and various editors from Marca consider this Ozil's best year with us.
The trouble is we played such hideous football by the end there wasn't much "sparkle".
But we have to realize how versatile he was. When we were down to 9 men in that one game for most of an hour, he was moved to right-fullback and covered the centre-back position for Albiol, for example - and he did flawlessly. When we played Barcelona he was involved in 32 separate actions, and made 9 ball recoveries. For reference: the average attacking midfielder makes 1 recovery a game.
It didn't look as sexy as his old football. Lazy comms said he had a "quiet" game against Barca, for example, but the bean-counters who actually pay attention to what he's doing and where he's doing it and rate his pressing, pour over his heat-map etc... consider him more effective and more of an influence on the team. It was hard. Having Modric as the 10 and Alonso and Khedira having simultaneous drops in form this year had an effect on the whole attack.
The trouble is we played such hideous football by the end there wasn't much "sparkle".
But we have to realize how versatile he was. When we were down to 9 men in that one game for most of an hour, he was moved to right-fullback and covered the centre-back position for Albiol, for example - and he did flawlessly. When we played Barcelona he was involved in 32 separate actions, and made 9 ball recoveries. For reference: the average attacking midfielder makes 1 recovery a game.
It didn't look as sexy as his old football. Lazy comms said he had a "quiet" game against Barca, for example, but the bean-counters who actually pay attention to what he's doing and where he's doing it and rate his pressing, pour over his heat-map etc... consider him more effective and more of an influence on the team. It was hard. Having Modric as the 10 and Alonso and Khedira having simultaneous drops in form this year had an effect on the whole attack.
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