Gunners scouts highlighted problems with Ozil following his brilliant displays at the 2010 World Cup.
Arsenal scouts advised against signing Mesut Ozil in 2010 because of the German’s mental weakness, according to Goal.com.
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Gunners boss Arsene Wenger reportedly decided against pursuing the then-Werder Bremen player because of information gathered by the club’s top-level scouts, who also cited Ozil’s lack of team ethic and laziness off the ball.
Ozil consequently joined Real Madrid, where he shone for three seasons, before moving to North London in a club record £42.4m deal this summer.
The classy pass-master started the season superbly but also shown some worrying fragility on occasions, and his spats with teammates Per Mertesacker and Mathieu Flamini suggest his lack of team ethic has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the Arsenal squad.
That said, the accusation of laziness off the ball seems harsh, with the stats Ozil covered more ground that most on his teammates in the recent 2-0 Champions League last-16 first leg defeat to Bayern Munich at the Emirates Stadium.
Wenger dropped the 25-year-old last weekend for the win over Sunderland after Ozil missed a crucial penalty against Bayern.
The Germany international’s costly miss followed some anonymous performances in the Premier League of late but Wenger insisted Ozil has the “toughness” to succeed in England.
“I never tell Mesut, ‘You have to win us the game’,” Wenger told the world’s press.
“He shouldn’t do that. It’s down to the performance of the team. But maybe he feels that a bit in a different way than I do. I just want him to enjoy it and play well.
“It is difficult for him mentally to be confronted with that pressure every three days and in every single competition. But he will adapt. He had a difficult game [against Bayern] because he missed that penalty and it was on his mind. Sometimes, when you are under this kind of pressure, it’s good to refresh.”