“Play Your Best Players” – Paul Merson Slams Unai Emery’s Treatment Of Ozil

Paul Merson comes to the defence of Mesut Ozil as he continues to get shunned…

Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson has slammed Unai Emery’s treatment of Mesut Ozil after the German star was left out of the squad that travelled to BATE Borisov, Sky Sports reports.

We suffered a shock defeat in our Europa League last-32 tie in Belarus and many have wondered why Emery decided to leave the playmaker at home.

Ozil returned to training earlier this week after a reported sickness, and many had imagined that he would make the trip to Eastern Europe.

However, as we’ve seen on a few occasions, Emery bizarrely left Ozil at home and refused to explain why the highest paid player in our squad wasn’t among the travelling party.

The Europa League is arguably our most realistic route back into the Champions League next season and it’s rather odd that Emery doesn’t see Ozil contributing to our hopes of winning the trophy.

For Merson, he cannot understand why Ozil can’t get a look-in, especially in a struggling Arsenal team.

“You play your best players and work around them,” Merson said.

“Ozil is Arsenal’s best player and he doesn’t play, it beats me.

“He must sit at home and watch Arsenal and think ‘how am I not getting into this team?’

“I don’t know if they are trying to push him into retirement, because he must sit there and think he might as well retire if he can’t get into Arsenal’s team.”

Emery’s treatment of Ozil has been very eccentric this season. At times, it seems the 30-year-old isn’t in his plans whatsoever, but then he returns to captain the side.

That was illustrated in our home game against Cardiff last month in which Ozil started and captained the side, only for the playmaker to be left on the bench for the entire game days later at Manchester City.

One thing we know for sure, Ozil and Emery cannot coexist at Arsenal.