Ozil and Sanchez are opposite ends of Wenger's failures

Mesut Ozil, apparently, is a complete waste of space. We know that because he is many things, both real and imagined. Ozil’s first crime is to be foreign, and foreign playmakers are not indulged in the way that good, honest British playmakers are.

Joe Cole might have been a poor and ineffective player, but that didn’t stop him being held up as a solution to English woes for far too long. Wayne Rooney might not have been able to control the ball, but he was suggested as a potential deep-lying central midfielder for three years longer than was justified. Ozil, though, is a waste of space.

In truth, he has been poor for a couple of years. Players who have to create things need to justify their presence when they are out of form by helping out the side in other ways. They need to press from the front, or contribute goals. They don’t need to point to pre-assists or add the occasional flourish to comfortable victories. They don’t need to show off during the poor games. Playmakers need to transcend the difficulties of the game to be something special – they need to be like Lee Trundle, but better.

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Ozil has not contributed enough goals, and he has not contributed enough when his teams need something magical or unexpected to drag them out of a funk. Instead, Arsenal have had to rely on Alexis Sanchez for that, or for Olivier Giroud’s bonce to turn up with a crucial goal. But it has mainly been Sanchez on hand to rescue Arsenal. Even then, you get the sense that he was doing it out of a sense of needing to be successful himself, not out of a duty to help his teammates.

This was the Robin van Persie playbook, where an Arsenal player gets sick of waiting for Arsene Wenger to improve the side through recruitment or training, and so takes it solely upon himself to change the fortune of the team. It isn’t teamwork, it is self-interest that benefits the team.

It is obvious now that Sanchez had no interest in remaining at Arsenal for this season. He anticipated leaving for Manchester City, and given Wenger’s late bid for Thomas Lemar, it appeared that he anticipated that City would get their man at the last minute, too. Lemar turned down the move – quite reasonably not taking the step down to Arsenal from Monaco – and Sanchez was forced to stay.

In the weeks leading up to Sanchez’s almost-transfer, stories leaked suggesting that part of the reason for his planned exit was because the rest of the squad had decided it was no longer worth tolerating his presence. For whatever reason, he had alienated the rest of the squad with his mardy attitude, and they were happy to sacrifice his talents for a happier atmosphere in the club. This is a problem, for two reasons.

First, it shows how far the mindset at Arsenal has fallen. Roy Keane at Manchester United might now be an anachronistic presence in a modern dressing room, but he was able to uphold standards in training and on the pitch.

Whether the methods change, every club needs at least one figure to do the same. Harry Kane clearly does that at Spurs, with his commitment to self-improvement, and Cristiano Ronaldo succeeded Keane in doing the same at United. That Arsenal wanted rid of their only player who was able to drive himself on despite Wenger’s presence suggests that they want a comfortable life more than they want a successful one.

But the second reason is more troubling. It is a manager’s job to make sure that the best players can exist with the less talented ones, and to make sure that differences are accommodated wherever possible. Rafael Benitez managed to hack everyone off at Real Madrid in 20 minutes; Zinedine Zidane cheered up the same set of players and won back-to-back Champions League titles.

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Wenger, though, has seemingly been unable to both motivate Sanchez to play for his teammates, and to motivate his teammates to play for Sanchez. Players drift around the same level of performance and skills and rarely change. Nacho Monreal is the same player he arrived as.

Petr Cech has slowly drifted away from his best. Theo Walcott has failed to become the player he could have been. Each of these players has a responsibility to themselves, but human nature shows that most people need the assistance of a teacher of some kind, or to receive support. They are not getting that at Arsenal.

And so, we move back to Ozil. A classic Arsenal performer, capable of occasional brilliance but incapable of dominating for a season, or when the situation demands it.

Wenger seems like an essentially decent man, and committed to his principles in both theory and practice. But if Ozil is a waste of space, then the blame for this and other floundering talents ultimately rests with the man who lets the situation repeat itself year after year.