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Arsenal legend Martin Keown tears into Mesut Ozil after ‘remarkable’ statistic revealed
ARSENAL legend Martin Keown has once again not held back his thoughts on Gunners star Mesut Ozil.
Ozil is out of favour at Arsenal and has been since Unai Emery replaced Arsene Wenger last summer.
The former Germany international has missed numerous matches this season due to illness, injury and tactical reasons.
He was left at home for the Europa League last-32 first-leg clash at BATE Borisov on Thursday.
BT Sport host Jake Humphrey revealed it was the 100th game Mesut Ozil has missed since he joined the club in 2013 out of a possible 314.
It's now becoming embarrassing the Ozil situation. We don’t know do we whether he’s really injured or not
Keown doubts whether the 30-year-old has actually been ill or injured and has questioned his complete commitment to the club.
“It’s questionable,” Keown said.
“Is he injured? Is he ill? One of the things for a player is you’ve got to be available for selection and you want to give consistency. He hasn’t been able to give either of those.
“So he’s got to work to get back into the team, that’s what the manager’s asking for, that’s what he has to do.
“But it’s now becoming embarrassing the Ozil situation.
“We don’t know do we whether he’s really injured or not.
“To miss that amount of games is quite remarkable isn’t it, 100 matches in that period. I would say that is definitely questionable. We don’t know, only the player really knows."
Keown says Emery is right to leave Ozil out if he is not fully committed.
But the former defender doubts whether it will be easy to offload Ozil in the summer.
He added: “I think the manager’s basically saying ‘look, you can’t just turn up and train when you want to, when you fancy it, I’m not going to take you on this trip because you haven’t trained enough’. That’s right and proper.
“I still feel though that he has got something to offer.
“The player has to ask himself what does he want to do, where does he want to play his football?
“If he’s going to go somewhere else his wages are so massive that Arsenal would have to contribute towards those wages.
“It just feels that decision made 12 months ago is proving to be the wrong decision.
“That decision is costing Arsenal Football Club something like £18million a year just alone for Ozil’s wages.
“That is really very restrictive for the football club.”