Mesut Özil’s condition at Arsenal has rather been curious and frustrating from a fan’s perspective. Under Unai Emery, the world cup winner has only started 16 times this season, scoring 5 goals and assisting thrice.
Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez, commonly known as Isco is also having a tough time at the Real Madrid. It seems like the 26 years old Spanish midfielder is out of favored in the plans of the Real Madrid manager Santiago Solari. In the last 19 matches for Real Madrid Isco has been only used six times from the benches and started as merely as once in which the Los Blancos suffered a humiliating 3-0 defeat at the Santiago Bernabéu in the Champions League against CSKA Moscow.
The main reason behind the exclusion of Özil from the playing eleven is the fact that allegedly, he does not contribute much to the defensive aspects but when it comes to the statistics it tells a different story. In Premier League he has an overall successful tackle ratio of 71% which is not bad at all for a creative player of his stature. He has also made 680 recoveries and won as many as 560 duels throughout his career for Arsenal which suggests he may not be as substandard defensively as people think about him.
Though Isco has a shirt number of 22 at Madrid but he loves to play in behind the striker and always wants to have a free roll and this is the only reason why he does not fit in the Solari system. The Real Madrid manager likes to play Lucas Vázquez on the wings who is much more defensive minded than Isco is. From the defensive point of view, Isco’s stats are awful this season. The Spanish midfielder averages only 1 tackle and 0.5 interception per match which is terrible really.
Mesut Özil faced questions all through his career about his attitude or mentality on and off the pitch but when it comes to the creativity only few can be compared to him. His recent display against Bournemouth exactly portraits the talent he possesses. He scored and assisted once and controlled the tempo of the match throughout the 90 minutes.
Isco played a crucial role for Madrid in the early part of the season in Julen Lopetegui’s short tenure with Real Madrid and nobody can question about the contribution he had in Madrid’s success in recent years.
The obligatory factor of having a “Number ten” is decreasing leaps and bound and you will find only few out and out “Number tens” are playing regularly in top European teams. The lavishness of this position has always been associated with an old cliché that they don’t contribute much from the defensive point of view but, it is far from true. We all adore to watch a creative player who plays with freedom and the finesse they bring into football.
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