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Arsenal news: Why Mesut Ozil is pleased Alexis Sanchez joined Man Utd - Michael Owen
ARSENAL star Mesut Ozil will be thankful for Alexis Sanchez’s move to Manchester United, claims Michael Owen.
Sanchez joined Manchester United from Arsenal in a straight swap with Henrikh Mkhitaryan in January 2018.
At the time both Sanchez and Mesut Ozil saw their Gunners contracts running out at the end of the season.
Once the Chilean departed, Ozil was made the club’s highest paid player in their history, earning a reported £350,000-a-week.
The German has struggled since though and has fallen out of favour under head coach Unai Emery.
Ozil must go to bed every night thinking ‘thank god for Sanchez’
And Owen reckons Ozil knows he would not have received such a wage increase if Alexis Sanchez stayed at the club.
“Ozil must go to bed every night thinking ‘thank god for Sanchez’,” Owen told BT Sport.
“They couldn’t, at that point, lose two players of that quality.
“Sanchez eventually left and Arsenal moved heaven and earth to keep him [Ozil], offering him double what he probably is worth in today’s market. So he’s got a real deal out of it.
“Whether that’s enough, in terms of some people are motivated by that, some people want to play every week and it’s all about the number of goals they score or whatever. We’re all motivated by different things.
“I think it’s been a real tricky situation with three players - I’ve mentioned Sanchez going, then Ozil, and now [Aaron] Ramsey.
“And the whole structure of wages really has been broken.
“I bet you if you look at their structure it’s Ozil up here and the rest down here.”
Arsenal are fifth in the Premier League and already out of the FA Cup.
But Owen has been impressed by the start of the Emery era.
“I think Emery has done a good job,” he added.
“I think at Arsenal the house started falling down a couple of seasons ago, well go back longer than that in terms of results.
“They’re actually starting to build again now."
Ozil was left out of the Arsenal squad who suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov in their Europa League last-32 first-leg clash on Thursday.