{"id":1855,"date":"2016-11-02T18:22:49","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T22:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=1855"},"modified":"2016-11-03T09:31:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T13:31:34","slug":"mesut-ozil-winning-remaining-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2016\/11\/02\/mesut-ozil-winning-remaining-critics\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesut \u00d6zil Winning Over his few Remaining Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Mesut \u00d6zil<\/strong> produced a moment of calmly-executed brilliance to see off <strong>Ludogorets<\/strong> and earn <strong>Arsenal<\/strong> a place in the <strong>Champions League<\/strong> knockout stages. With the match delicately poised and reaching the dying embers, the <strong>German<\/strong> reminded his few remaining critics of his remarkable gift with a football, scoring a goal of such quality it will be etched into the memories of football fans for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Latching onto a superb through ball by <strong>Mohamed Elneny<\/strong>, \u00d6zil showed confidence and composure, lifting the ball over the wayward goalkeeper. With the goal at his mercy, he had Arsenal fans willing him to put the ball into the unguarded net. Unfazed by the pressure of the occasion, \u00d6zil continued to wrong-foot both covering defenders, staggering them with two deceptive feints. Waiting for the opportune moment to land the killing blow, he calmly tapped home into an empty net. In one moment of individual genius, \u00d6zil demonstrated the brilliance that Arsenal broke their transfer record for in 2013.<\/p>\n<h3>Criticism<\/h3>\n<p>Despite his plaudits, \u00d6zil receives criticism for lacking in consistency. The midfielder is commonly used as a scapegoat when Arsenal do not perform, but the truth lies in the reverse. Arsenal, as a team, do not perform when \u00d6zil does not. He is both the heartbeat and brain of his team, driving them forward with his vision and creativity.<\/p>\n<p>His impressive season so far has coincided with Arsenal\u2019s success, a fact only his most tenacious critics would consider coincidental. \u00d6zil has added goals to his game and elevated himself to a level capable of guiding any team to success. With seven goals in all competitions, the German\u00a0has found an instinct for goal that he had previously lacked.<\/p>\n<p>With difficult fixtures to come in a defining November for Arsenal, \u00d6zil has an opportunity to prove he is worthy of world class status by performing in the bigger matches. In his current form, few defences will manage to suppress his quality and doubters will have few\u00a0grounds for reservation.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/620193920\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.161616% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/620193920?et=HbuOKKNtSyxtmljnne-EGg&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=iWE_LStCWk8RtvItrjCbfvtnDCdtq-rAFUZMxc6aEMw=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"393\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mesut \u00d6zil produced a moment of calmly-executed brilliance to see off Ludogorets and earn Arsenal a place in the Champions League knockout stages. With the match delicately poised and reaching the dying embers, the German reminded his few remaining critics of his remarkable gift with a football, scoring a goal of such quality it will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1737,"featured_media":1865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[378,8],"tags":[32738,86,208,473,40],"class_list":["post-1855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-champions-league","category-arsenal","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-champions-league","tag-ludogorets","tag-mesut-ozil","tag-premier-league"],"modified_by":"Hugo Jennings","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}