{"id":535462,"date":"2019-10-17T14:41:04","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T18:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=535462"},"modified":"2019-10-17T14:41:04","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T18:41:04","slug":"unai-emery-mesut-ozil-relationship-positive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/10\/17\/unai-emery-mesut-ozil-relationship-positive\/","title":{"rendered":"Unai Emery and Mesut Ozil&#8217;s Relationship Takes Positive Turn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unai Emery and Mesut Ozil haven&#8217;t really gotten along during their time together at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/arsenal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arsenal<\/a>. The trend dates back to almost the start of the Spaniard&#8217;s tenure in north London, but has been a real talking point this season. However, their relationship is apparently on the mend ahead of their match against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/sheffield-united-club-news-analysis-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sheffield United<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Unai Emery and Mesut Ozil Positive About Relationship<\/h2>\n<h3>Emery Downplays Previous Comments<\/h3>\n<p>The head coach pulled no punches when he told the media that Ozil wasn&#8217;t playing because others deserved to more. Ahead of the first match following the international break, Emery downplayed those previous comments and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arsenal.com\/news\/unai-sheffield-united-ozil-racism-transcript\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">added some context<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I said that, it&#8217;s because at that moment maybe physically, maybe also with more rhythm, it depends on each match what we need. Other players were in front of him at this moment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now, I am telling you I am feeling better with him every day in training and he is another possibility in the squad now to play and to help us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With the club facing fixture congestion in the coming weeks, this breakthrough in the coach&#8217;s attitude toward the player suggests Ozil will be involved in some capacity.<\/p>\n<h3>Ozil Determined to Stay<\/h3>\n<p>Meanwhile, the player told the Athletic he feels <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/arsenal\/story\/3966840\/ozil-its-always-my-fault-if-we-dont-do-well\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">no ill will toward the coach<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All I know is what has already been said. It&#8217;s disappointing, of course, but as a professional footballer, I have to respect the decision of the coach. This should not be about me or the coach, only the club.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, it appears that Unai Emery and Mesut Ozil are heading towards a much more friendly relationship.<\/p>\n<p>The former German international also took the time to address his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/arsenal\/story\/3966840\/ozil-its-always-my-fault-if-we-dont-do-well\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">future at Arsenal<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I signed the new deal, I thought about it very carefully and said it was one of the most important decisions of my footballing career. I didn&#8217;t want to stay for just one or two more years, I wanted to commit my future to Arsenal and the club wanted me to do the same.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can go through difficult times, like this, but that is no reason to run away and I&#8217;m not going to. I&#8217;m here until at least 2021.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"lyVK4wMpQPxIalP55fW2Gg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1168443544\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'lyVK4wMpQPxIalP55fW2Gg',sig:'X1THoygwte85RxYtoLrXKcZ2uMLZA92AwWGMUyvHocA=',w:'594px',h:'380px',items:'1168443544',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unai Emery and Mesut Ozil haven&#8217;t really gotten along during their time together at Arsenal. The trend dates back to almost the start of the Spaniard&#8217;s tenure in north London, but has been a real talking point this season. However, their relationship is apparently on the mend ahead of their match against Sheffield United. Unai [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2390,"featured_media":535470,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2,1828,30,3,1831],"tags":[32738,473,40,948,136],"class_list":["post-535462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-featured","category-fixtures","category-news","category-premier-league","category-starting-line-up","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-mesut-ozil","tag-premier-league","tag-unai-emery","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Martin Hawkins","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535462","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\/2390"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}