Stats breakdown: Debunking Uli Hoeness’ Ozil outburst
After Mesut Ozil announced that he would no longer represent the German national team - at least under the current regime at the DFB - notoriously outspoken Bayern president Uli Hoeness didn’t hold back in his criticism of the playmaker.
Hoeness implied that he was glad to see the back of the Arsenal man in Die Mannschaft colours, with some scathing comments about the 29-year-old’s form and commitment.
We’ve broken the Bayern supremos quotes down to see if there is any justification behind his sensational remarks of a player that has been scapegoated for both club and country for years.
“He has been playing like s**t for years”
So this is undeniably harsh, but it’s certainly not wayward to suggest that Ozil has been short of his best over the past two seasons at Arsenal. Since making the move from Real Madrid he has regressed to the player that endured a relatively frustrating debut season in England, missing more minutes through injury and illness once more.
In fact, Ozil played a near identical number of minutes last season as he did in his first campaign at the Emirates, with a direct hand in fewer goals. A tally of 12 (four goals, eight assists) was a significant drop off from each of the past two seasons, with 17 in 2016/17 and 25 in 2015/16, which was his best campaign in an Arsenal shirt. His WhoScored.com rating has dropped each season since, from a superb 7.66 to 7.30 and a career low of 7.25 last time out. Hardly a s**t score by any standards, it should be said.
“He last won a tackle before the 2014 World Cup”
Well this is obviously an exaggeration, but criticisms of Ozil’s defensive work rate are nothing new. Taking this literally, the creator didn’t make a single tackle in his two outings as Germany crashed out of the World Cup in Russia, though he did produce six at Euro 2016.
The statement was merely an insinuation that Ozil doesn’t offer enough out of possession, however, and over the past three seasons he has been dribbled past more times (84) in the Premier League than he has made tackles (80).
“All he is doing on the field is playing sideways passes”
This was a pretty outrageous critique of a player renowned for his vision and ability to play that all important incisive forward pass. He did, after all, make the most key passes in the group stages of the World Cup (11) despite missing the game against Sweden.
Of all players to make 20 or more Premier League appearances last season, only 12 averaged more sideways passes per game than Ozil (39.5), but as a proportion of his overall passes, his attempts sideways equated to 56.7 per cent, which ranks 38th of the same group of players, just below Paul Pogba.
“Whenever we (Bayern) played against Arsenal, we targeted him because we knew he was the weak point”
Three consecutive 5-1 victories over the Gunners certainly suggest that Bayern have had their English counterparts number and then some in recent years, facing Arsenal six times in total during Ozil’s spell in North London.
It’s unquestionably true that the German has struggled in said meetings, with a WhoScored.com rating of just 6.49 across all six matches. That’s the lowest score of the 11 players from either side to have featured in at least five, with only Kieran Gibbs (6.47) and Nacho Monreal (6.45) earning worse ratings of those to play in at least four. That said, only Alexis Sanchez secured a higher rating than seven for the London club in said meetings, so to point the finger solely at Ozil is again somewhat unjustified.
“No-one questioned that he was playing c**p at the World Cup”
It’s fair to say that Ozil failed to make his mark in Russia, though it wasn’t for the lack of trying - from a creative standpoint at least. Had any one of the 11 chances he created had been converted things could have been very different for the 2014 champions, and a modest WhoScored rating of 6.93 was actually the fourth best in the German ranks.
The likes of Timo Werner, Manuel Neuer, Marco Reus, Sami Khedira and Thomas Muller all earned significantly lower scores but it was Ozil who bore the brunt of the criticism and has done in a German national shirt for some time.
It’s little wonder, in truth, why he’s had enough, even if his performances on the pitch haven’t been up to his former standards.
@ whoscored.com -- I have a problem with the definition of the word " key pass ". You wrote, that Özil created 11 scoring chances. I think this definition is deceiving. It doesn't mean, that every pass that leads to a shot on goal, will automatically turn out as a good scoring opportunity. Many passes of Özil , that lead to a shot on goal, are simple passes to the side and the shot itself is often no real threat for the goalie. If you look at Özils Stats, you might assume he created an incredible amount of good scoring chances, where in fact just a few of those passes, that lead to shots, can be called a " good scoring opportunity "...
Of course Hoeneß statements were very harsh and exaggerating but there is always some truth in what he says. Sometimes statistics don't quite reflect the impression of someone you get on the field. First there is Özils body language, which always leads to a feeling, that he is not really involved into the game and tries to stay out of trouble rather than going into situations and taking on men. In big games Özil is therefore hardly ever a factor and remains invisible most of the times. It is quite obvious, that Özil was much more active and dynamically engaged, when he was still playing for Madrid. Back than he was an active playmaker, who did runs with ball, were seeking dribbles and were constantly involved into the game. These days he has become more of a shadow player, who leaves most of the work to others and focuses mostly on that one opening to deliver his key pass. The rest of the game he tries to keep a low profile and plays meaningless give and goes ...
@neumi17 So it's understandable that many people are unhappy with the way he plays, despite having "ok"stats maybe. Despite playing for Germany for almost 10 years now, he never became a leader or was doing anything uplifting, when things didn't go that well. For those reasons he has always been the focus of extreme controversial discussions. Latley also because of his ridiculous statements regarding the dfb ( German football association ). Where it is true, that the situation around his meeting with Erdogan was handled poorly by all sites and the German president Grindel is indeed incompetent, the rest of his accusations are laughable. Özil sees no fault on his side, can't imagine, why people want at least an answer, why he met up with a dictator and puts himself in a position as a victim, who is disliked for racist reasons. This is all wrong, as well his strange allegations regarding Matthäus or Mercedes. Also not a single person blamed him for the early exit at the world cup but ...
@neumi17 ...the entire team ! The entire team plus Löw and Bierhoff always stood strongly behind him, when he was in question. Of course it is a difficult situation for Özil, since most of his family lives in Turkey. He he apologizes for the picture, they might get in trouble as the families of other turkish sport stars, who spoke out against Erdogan. But to blame everything on others and racism and accusing the dfb to have a right wing agenda, whereas he supports a dictator, who surpresses every opinion, that's not in his favour and puts people in prison, is shameful and cowardly.
@neumi17- The last bit in particular, because Germany and their companies post-WWII have bent over backwards to accommodate immigrants in an attempt to shake off the xenophobic image which persisted for a while even after Hitler's death. You only need to look at Angela Merkel's recent immigration policies, which have been roundly criticised, to see the country as a whole is very liberal in their treatment towards non-ethnic Germans, even to the point of overly so.
Hoeness has always been a windbag and most of what he says is taken with a pinch of salt. Mesut taking the brunt for Germany's failure at the WC is simply because he is their best player. The flawed logic of 'if a team fails, it is down to their best player' is in vogue. Messi copped as much stick as Oezil after Argentina's figurative demise. Lewansowski similarly, Griezmann in the group stage. You can bet if Portugal were knocked out in the group stage, people would be writing Ronaldo's obituary. It is stupid, but it is no less than we expect. I agree with most of what Mesut said in his statement but he also has to take responsibility for his own, objectively, poor performances (those are far less than the subjectively poor ones...) as well as posing for a photo with a brutal dictator- something even the German politicians of Turkish descent have criticised. He is well liked among the Arsenal fans and hopefully his international retirement will prolong his club career. Ja gunners ja!