Wenger Reveals Worrying News Concerning Mesut Ozil’s Injury

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Mesut Ozil felt a ‘crack’ in his knee during the first half against Chelsea but was allowed to continue playing the entire game.

Ozil completed the full ninety minutes during Arsenal’s 2-0 loss at Stamford Bridge on the 5th October before flying out to Frankfurt to link-up with the German squad ahead of their Euro 2016 qualifiers.

However, having complained of pain in his knee, the German FA soon sent him for scans which confirmed that the 26-year-old had suffered a partial tear of his ligament and was facing around three months on the sidelines.

The Daily Mail carry quotes from an interview the boss has conducted with beIN Sports where he reveals the true story of how the injury came about, and it’s worrying to say the least.

Wenger confirmed that Ozil felt a ‘crack’ in his knee just before half time after playing a simple ball with the outside of his foot, but the German attacker was allowed to carry on and see out the remainder of the game. Arsene said:

‘He [Ozil] had a little problem just before he went out at half-time. He had a little pain with his knee, he felt a crack.

‘I said to our physio to keep an eye on him and if there was anything wrong with him, tell me because when you’re 1-0 down, you want to keep your offensive players on the pitch.

‘I am deeply shocked. He wasn’t involved in a collision with anybody.

‘It was just after making a pass with the outside of his foot that he injured his leg so it’s very hard to believe that you can damage your ligament with just making a simple pass and it’s very difficult to take that he will be out for a while.’ Wenger is quoted as saying by the Mail

Obviously it’s difficult to make an immediate assessment on an injury during a game but it really is worrying that our physio and manager allowed Ozil to play on despite knowing he was in pain.

It sounds like Arsene was reluctant to substitute him as it was a big game and we were losing, which is understandable to a degree, but the good of the player must come first and there’s no way Mesut should have stayed on.

There are many theories about why Arsenal suffer so many injuries, but Wenger believes our recent spate are nothing more than a ‘coincidence’, and feels the club haven’t made any ‘mistakes’ in preparing for games. He continued:

‘I am not a great believer in coincidences but this time it really is coincidence.

‘You cannot say our injuries are preparation mistakes. The big injuries we have are really accidental.

‘Scientifically we are quite good. We have been hit hard after seven games. I would never have thought we would have had so many bad injuries.’

We may not have made any mistakes in preparing for the game, but we certainly made one in letting Ozil stay on against Chelsea, so I’m not sure how Arsene can claim our poor injury record is just a ‘coincidence’.

It’s difficult to say for certain, but I’d hazard a guess that playing the rest of the game made the injury worse and now we’re facing up to losing our record signing until the New Year.