Ozil & Sanchez Have Let Arsenal Down This Season, Says Keown

Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil have both let Arsenal down this season, according to former defender Martin Keown, speaking after the club finished the season in fifth.

Sanchez ended the season with 24 goals and 10 assists in 38 appearances for Arsenal while Ozil managed eight goals and nine assists from 33 Premier League games.

However, speculation over the pair’s future has dominated the headlines in recent months with neither player yet to agree a contract extension at Arsenal.

Keown has criticised the pair for their behaviour prior to the defeat at Bayern Munich which saw Sanchez dropped while Ozil missed out due to a reported combination of illness and injury.

“It became about Ozil and Sanchez for too long in the season. I think their behaviour let Arsenal down in that period,” said via The Independent.

“Ozil wasn’t available for large periods. Was he injured, wasn’t he? Was it sickness, was it injury? He didn’t seem to be around when they needed him most.

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“Sanchez then had an incident at the club. It felt like he threw his toys out of the cot for a little while. We don’t really know exactly what happened. All of that was I think because these guys were maybe over-indulged a little bit. That’s Arsene Wenger’s style of management.

“They’re the best players, they’re the type of players he loves most of all. They maybe let Arsene Wenger down.”

Sanchez has been linked with a move to Manchester City and Bayern Munich in recent days and Keown says the Chilean can be a handful.

“I think he’s a difficult man to manage,” he added. “I did turn up at the training ground once – I’ve only been there I think twice in the last three years – and it was one of his days off but he suddenly turned up and he was bouncing around the training pitch.

“They were having to facilitate him and put a training session on for him. That can be a good thing but he’s a very demanding individual. It’s not necessarily about you as a player, you have to fit in as well with the group.”

The speculation over Ozil and Sanchez’s futures, and indeed Wenegr’s, certainly hasn’t helped the club this season and is just one of several issues that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible to allow the club to move on and plan for the future.