Former Chelsea defender Jason Cundy has launched a vicious attack on Arsenal star Mesut Ozil, labelling him ‘the most overrated player in the Premier League’.
Ozil has enjoyed a fine start to the season – picking up seven goals and four assists in all competitions so far – but it hasn’t been enough to impress Cundy.
The TalkSport presenter, who also works for ChelseaTV, is so underwhelmed by Ozil’s form that he wouldn’t want the German star ‘anywhere near’ Stamford Bridge.
“When I say this I don’t say it lightly but Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil is the most overrated player in the Premier League,” Cundy told Football Fan.Zone.
“If you want to talk about world class, let’s look at someone like Luis Suarez for example, he’s the standard and Ozil can’t be mentioned in the same breath as the former Liverpool man.
“Last week we were forced to bow to the midfielder because he scored a wonder goal against a bunch of Bulgarian farmers to complete an Arsenal comeback but why were Arsenal losing 2-0 in the first place?
“Who on earth are Ludogorets that we should be getting so excited?”
“Aside from not being world class, he isn’t even the best player at his club right now. [Alexis] Sanchez is proving more important and I wouldn’t have him [Ozil] anywhere near Chelsea.”
Cundy clearly isn’t Ozil’s biggest fan and thinks the 28-year-old needs to step up in the more important matches to prove his quality.
The Arsenal midfielder was kept fairly quiet by Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham side during the 1-1 draw at the Emirates on Sunday afternoon.
And although he delivered the vital free-kick that caused Kevin Wimmer to head into his own goal and give the Gunners the lead, Cundy doesn’t think that kind of contribution warrants the hefty price Arsene Wenger paid to buy him from Real Madrid in 2013.
He added: “Even worse after such a ‘great’ performance mid-week, you would have expected him to then put a Spurs side without a win in 6 games to the sword right? Wrong! Again he went missing when Arsenal needed him most.
“Arsenal fans constantly talk about his assists and last season there was such a furore about how he was going to break the Premier League assist record, needing just 3 in the final 11 games to do it, then he decided to go on holiday whilst his team were scrapping for a first Premier League title since 2004 and in the end fell short of Thierry Henry’s record of 20 by 1.
“Embarrassingly I saw a number of Arsenal fans attempting to claim an assist for him on Wimmer’s own goal on Sunday.
“It’s become a very Arsenal thing to go on and on about stats to mask other failings, but the most important stat of all is for the £42.5m spent to bring him to the Emirates, there are only 2 FA Cups to show for it and if they are so keen on assists, then they may want to take note that both Nemanja Matic and Wayne Rooney have more assists in the league this season!”
Such a controversial rant is understandably unlikely to go down very well amongst the Gunners faithful.
And they only need to remind Cundy of Chelsea’s very unhappy trip to the Emirates earlier in the season – where Ozil scored one of Arsenal’s three goals – to argue that their star man is willing to stand up and be counted in the big matches.