Mesut Ozil bizarrely blasted by Graeme Souness for ‘not doing the hard yards’… but running stats prove otherwise
GRAEME SOUNESS claimed Mesut Ozil did not put in the "hard yards" against Newcastle - but stats show otherwise.
In fact, the German midfielder covered the second-most distance out of any Arsenal player on the pitch on Sunday.
Ozil netted his first goal for the Gunners since April 2019 as Mikel Arteta's men put four past Steve Bruce's side.
Arsenal looked refreshed and recharged after the Premier League winter break, but Souness insisted Ozil needs to "bust a gut".
Speaking on Sky Sports after the game, he said: "He sees a pass, in tight areas he keeps the ball but it's same old accusation.
"Does he bust a gut? No doesn't. Does he do the hard yards? No he doesn't always."
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But the running statistics have proved the incredible impact that Ozil had at the Emirates this weekend.
Granit Xhaka was the only Arsenal player to cover more distance and only Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ran faster than him.
Ozil covered 6.67 miles, completed four sprints and hit a top speed of over 20mph.
The match stats show that David Luiz completed just one sprint during the match compared to 18 from Aubameyang.
Despite the majority of play taking place in Newcastle's box, goalkeeper Bernd Leno covered a distance of 2.9miles.
ATTITUDE PROBLEM
Former Real Madrid star Ozil scored Arsenal's third goal in the 90th minute, but Souness wanted to see more.
His rant continued: "A player of his quality having one goal in 10 months, OK you've got to factor in a couple of months of the close season, but still.
"If he had a different attitude, where he could get angry with himself when things are not going well.
"I've seen him here, he missed a penalty against Bayern Munich and then disappeared.
"If he had a slightly different attitude where he could get fired up, he'd still be at Real Madrid."
Arteta vowed to give Ozil a clean slate when he arrived at Arsenal as he insisted he would not be judged on his past.
Souness has piled the pressure on the Spaniard to get the best out of him after failed attempts from Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery.
He added: "I think he's had different times of management. Arsene Wenger was easy on him, Unai Emery came in on and was hard on him, and now it's a new manager's turn.
"I don't know, he's not a boy anymore, he's a man who knows what he has to do to be successful at this level.
"There's very few players playing professional football anywhere that have his type of ability, he's exceptional.
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"He should be, at his age, the top of the game, scoring regularly, creating regularly and working his socks off for his team when they don't have the ball.
"He is a very special talent but how do you make him focused so that he goes out and shows that every time he crosses the white line?
"That's the challenge for the new manager."
