Why Max Allegri is the perfect manager to finally solve Arsenals Mesut Ozil problem

Even when Mesut Ozil is not playing, he is still making headlines – and he has been missing rather a lot for Arsenal this season. That used to only be in a proverbial sense, supposedly disappearing in big games, but more recently it has become a whole lot more literal. There have been a variety of illnesses and a recurring back problem, though his absence from Arsene Wengers final home match, just three days after playing against Atletico Madrid, felt like a watershed moment.

There have been reports since that a number of the Arsenal squad were unhappy that Ozil missed the game, and there is a growing sense that the clubs highest-paid player is allowed to pick and choose when he plays – something flagged in a withering, though not entirely inaccurate, tirade by Martin Keown prior to Ozil sitting out his fifth straight Premier League match at the weekend.

Wenger defended Ozil afterwards and insists the German did want to play on Sunday, though the criticism of his continued absences (hes only played 56% of available minutes across all competitions) has been noted. Hes aware because hes on social networks, like many people, so hes aware of that, explained the departing Arsenal boss. But you cannot always master what people say, you can just master your own attitude.

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But it is precisely Ozils attitude – and that of his manager – that feels like the problem. There is a banner hung in the Emirates with a quote from Wenger that reads: Football should be an art. It sometimes feels as though, like so many great artists, Ozil has been indulged too much. That is true of many of the players at the club, where a certain level of mediocrity has been allowed to fester, but Ozil more than most.

Martin Keown's Mesut Ozil rant in full

I bet he doesnt play again this season. Hell have some emotional breakdown and wont be able to play at the weekend. I dont know how many illnesses hes had this season. The fella is not kidding me. That is not a proper performance. Hes not giving everything and theres much more under the bonnet. Somebody else will find it. Whether the new manager coming can find it I dont know. Its a big problem for the new manager because Wengers invested an awful lot of money in this player and Im not seeing a performance to go with it. He wasnt fit to wear the shirt tonight. And Ive seen this a lot this season and it needs to be said because he needs to be dug out because we expect more from him. Hes a World Cup winner. These are crocodile tears that Im seeing from the player. Hes not conning me. Listen, Ive had my say on it and I feel hes not giving enough for Arsenal Football Club. And maybe Arsene Wenger should come out and say a little bit more about some of these players that should have performed for him and hes one that hasnt. (BT Sport)

That is particularly problematic as Arsenal move into the post-Wenger era, where a leadership vacuum is already developing. Wengers departure coincides with the retirement of club captain Per Mertesacker, while his deputy, Laurent Koscielny, will not return until December at the very earliest. Ozil – one of the clubs most decorated and experienced players, who won the World Cup and helped break up Barcelonas Pep Guardiola-masterminded hegemony in La Liga – should be the player everyone else looks to now. But he is not.

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Instead, he remains an inconsistent enigma – critics deride a work rate and intensity that rarely matches his supreme talent – and he represents the biggest problem Wengers successor must solve. In pursuing one last shot at glory, the Frenchman put all his chips, and £350,000-a-week, on Ozil – who turns 30 this summer – as well as signing two similarly aged players in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. But all he appears to have done is create a white elephant for the man that follows him.

Number of times in Arsenal matchday squads 2017/18 (all comps)

1. Alex Iwobi512. David Ospina493. Granit Xhaka4714. Mesut Ozil36

Getting the best out of Ozil, therefore, should be high up on the list of skills the next Arsenal manager needs. So far, the Gunners search can be loosely divided into two groups: the rookies – as inspired by the success of NFL coach Sean McVay with another of Stan Kroenkes sports ventures, the LA Rams – and those with rather more experience. It is the latter, and Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri in particular, who feels most suited to finally unlocking Ozils full potential.

The Italian, on course to win his fifth career Scudetto, has rightly been pitched as the perfect antidote to some of Wengers bigger failings. Allegri is the pragmatist to Wengers idealist, someone to come in and finally organise the back-line into something more reliable and resolute. He is a tactical wizard, too, with his mid-game reshuffle at Wembley sending Arsenals north London rivals crashing out of the Champions League.

But where he feels lightyears ahead of the other candidates is his approach to managing difficult players. At Juventus he helped elevate Paul Pogba to another level following Antonio Contes departure and turned lone wolf Carlos Tevez into the ultimate team player. Before that, with AC Milan, he tamed the previously unmanageable Mario Balotelli and oversaw the best spell of his career – scoring 12 goals in 13 games after leaving Manchester City – as well as winning the title with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Kevin-Prince Boateng and an inspired Robinho.

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Allegri, who is as close with his players as he is demanding, imbues his star men with a sense of responsibility, something Ozil has largely shirked – on and off the pitch. He instructed Balotelli to be a protagonist in a team full of youngsters as Milan ushered in a new era and encouraged Pogba to think like a veteran after handing him the iconic Juve No.10 shirt.

Max Allegri explains his managerial style to The Players' Tribune

Even when I was on the football pitch as a teenager, I wanted to be the teacher. To be honest, I was … unruly, lets say. (Some managers may have had another word for it.) I had a few passionate discussions with my own coaches, but it wasnt for more playing time or anything like that. It was because, even then, I wanted to run the team my own way. Maybe Im a little headstrong, but I think, especially now, and as much as the games changed, thats what you need. The media, they always talk of formations. They talk about maths. On the pitch, it is much more complicated. A 3-5-3 can be a 3-5-3 when you have the ball, and then when you dont have the ball, you might need a 5-4-1. Or a blah-blah-blah. What is important is shape and discipline and instincts. Your instincts are most important, I think. When I dont trust my own instincts, when I doubt myself, thats when I make mistakes.

Though generally a relaxed presence with his squad – he would play basketball with Pogba – what is interesting about Allegris approach to handling those type of egos is how often he is prepared to incite a degree of tension. He almost got into a fist fight with Ibrahimovic, fell out with Andrea Pirlo and told Leonardo Bonucci to shut up, d***head when he objected to his end-of-game changes against Palermo last season.

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But the animosity rarely seems to linger, it fact it often seems quite healthy. Mario Mandzukic may have kicked out at a water bottle, but he still performs his unique left-wing role (which is part striker, part full-back) with trademark tirelessness. Paulo Dybala – who refused to shake hands with Allegri at one point last season – felt his mangers wrath again earlier this year and responded by scoring a last-minute winner against Lazio. And then the winner against Tottenham. And then a hat-trick against Benevento.

Allegri creates – and harnesses – a sort of combustibility, and it is a method that has got the best out of Ozil before. At Real Madrid, under Jose Mourinho, he was challenged relentlessly. Ozil recounts one of many heated exchanges between the two in the book, Die Magie des Spiels (The Magic of the Game), where Mourinho screamed at him: You think two beautiful passes are enough. You think youre so good that 50 per cent is enough. Oh, are you giving up now? Youre such a coward!

Ozil enjoyed the most prolific campaign of his career since leaving Werder Bremen under Mourinho and hit double figures for assists in each of his three years under the Portuguese coach. In his title-winning season with Real, he also won 45 of his 74 attempted tackles – twice as many as he has managed this season. Ozil feels like he could use some of that Mourinho tough love now, and Allegri may well be the man to provide it.

Mesut Ozil's goals + assists at Real Madrid vs this season

2010/11 season302012/13 season272011/12 season262017/18 season12

Of course, there is a risk attached to such an approach, one that will be heightened at a club whose players have been mollycoddled for so long. Everything unravelled for Allegri at Milan, admittedly in part due to a monumental changing of the guard and the first beginnings of PSGs pillaging (Ronaldinho, Pirlo, Nesta, Gattuso, Inzaghi, Zambrotta, Seedorf, Thiago Silva and Ibrahimovic all left), while Bonucci departed Juve not long after his argument with Allegri. Mourinho, similarly, has found that such a volatile approach creates problems when he cannot point to trophies as evidence of his methods success.

But equally it feels like a dramatic change in mood and approach is needed at Arsenal, someone to light a fire under a club that has stagnated – and a playmaker, in Ozil, who is no longer being pushed. When he was at his best for Real Madrid he was constantly baited and driven by Mourinho, while with the German national team he has always been provided with a structure and platform to excel. At Arsenal he has had neither, but Allegri brings both.

More: Arsenal FC

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