Ahead of the festive football period, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has hit back at critics of his German play-maker Mesut Ozil. The 28-year-old came in for huge criticism after the Gunners capitulated in the second-half against Manchester City recently but his coach has jumped to his defence, stating that; “It’s very difficult for me to come out on an individual - I have a debrief with players themselves. To be absolutely fair I did not listen to all the criticism we got, but we have to accept it.”
 

He continued; “People analyse and have opinion and that's normal. We have to respond. Big players always respond to criticism on pitch. I don't give him leeway - when team has no possession he has to do job like everybody else. Usually he does it well. But he suffers more when we don't have the ball and at City we didn't have the ball enough, but unfortunately if you want the ball you have to win it back. He is a guy who works much harder than people think - his body language goes against him sometimes. We are a team who wins it back high up with Sanchez and Ozil - he does his job very well. Where we had a deficit at City was winning the ball back in the middle of the park.”


Steve Mitchell @barafundler