Oz-Fest
Unai Emery confirms Mesut Ozil is ready to become the new Arsenal captain
German suffered World Cup heartache and subsequently quit internationals after brutal fall-out
German suffered World Cup heartache and subsequently quit internationals after brutal fall-out
UNAI EMERY is ready to give Mesut Ozil the Arsenal captaincy to help him get over his World Cup misery.
The German superstar was handed the armband for the first time in his Gunners’ career during yesterday’s 4-1 win against French Champions Paris St.Germain.
And Emery confirmed that Ozil is one of the candidates to become his skipper on a permanent basis while Laurent Koscielny recovers from a long-term knee injury.
Less than a week after announcing his international retirement due to racism and a lack of respect back in Germany, Ozil was all smiles again as the Gunners prepared to fly back from Singapore.
After opening the scoring in a morale-boosting victory he tweeted: “Feeling proud to be captain today. Good win and another fantastic support here in Singapore.”
New boss Emery said: “We are working to give responsibility to the players and Mesut can take that as the captain.
“I have said that I am looking for five captains and I am telling you that those being considered are Mesut, Aaron Ramsey and Petr Cech.
"But it is not closed I am thinking about one or two others take this responsibility as well and don’t forget about Koscielny as he continues as a captain behind the scenes.”
Emery was pleased with the way Ozil combined with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan during an impressive first-half display - but warned that the club’s highest paid player still has work to do on the defensive side of his game.
He said: “We want to give Mesut the position on the pitch where he feels at his best.
“He can play on the right and go inside, opening up and giving space for the right-back to push up.
“In the first-half today we played with good quality players but I wanted them to do the pressing better. Actually, we pressed better when the younger players came on later in the game.
“But this was the first match back for Mesut and for Alex Iwobi and Mohamed Elneny.
“Tactically they haven’t worked much with the team. We only did one day of tactics this week, looking at videos for movement and pressing.
“The first idea is that we are working without the ball and overall I am happy with how we played.
“The results were not the most important thing but our work over these two games in Singapore has been very good.”
