Arsenal: Mustafi labels Ozil critics as ‘stupid’

Shkodran Mustafi has hit out at critics of his Germany and Arsenal teammate Mesut Ozil after his man-of-the-match display against Tottenham on Saturday.

Ozil – who takes his place at the top of Daniel Storey’s weekend winners list after his performance in the Gunners’ 2-0 win – delivered the free-kick for Mustafi’s opener.

The midfielder has been extensively criticised for a perceived lack of effort, with 16 Conclusions highlighting some particular nonsense from Charlie Nicholas.

“If you look at what Mesut has achieved, you have to give him credit,” Mustafi told the Evening Standard. “It’s stupid to just go out and say, ‘He’s not good enough. He’s not this, he’s not that’. You have to see what he has done in his career and you have to give him credit and respect that.”

Arsene Wenger played the attacking triumvirate of Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Alexandre Lacazette for only the third time this season and it brought a third victory, leading Mustafi to be asked if they were the equal to any other Premier League attack.

“That’s what I was saying before. We know if we can keep a clean sheet and we don’t concede a goal, we have the quality and potential up-front to always score.

“We have it with Alexis, we have it with Mesut and we have it with Lacazette. Even when Danny Welbeck and Oli come off the bench, they have scored a lot of times, especially Oli from the bench.

“We know if we can keep a clean sheet, we’re in the game. Even against Swansea, when we went down a goal, we always know that we can score goals.

“In the end, it’s about how compact we are: keeping the shape, being disciplined. We know we have the quality up-front to score goals.”