Former Arsenal midfielder, Ray Parlour, has claimed that the acrimonious end to Unai Emery’s time at Paris Saint-Germain, is playing a part in his treatment of Mesut Ozil.
Emery failed to control an ego-packed PSG dressing room during his time in the French capital and fell out on numerous occasions with world-record signing, Neymar.
The Spaniard is facing up to a similar scenario at Arsenal, where Ozil has struggled to adapt to his tactical demands.
Ozil was not included in the match day squad for ‘tactical reasons’, as the Gunners slipped to a 2-0 defeat against Tottenham in the Carabao Cup quarter final on Tuesday, but is in line to make his return against Burnley on Saturday.
“Ozil is not featuring and he wasn’t even in the squad against Spurs, so that’s a bit of a worry if you’re an Arsenal fan,” Parlour told talkSPORT.
“Something has gone wrong behind the scenes, probably in training his attitude has not been right.
“When you get left out you’ve got to come back and make sure your attitude is spot on.
“You’ve got to show the manager you mean business and you’re going to fight for your place and maybe he hasn’t done that. So Emery had made that big decision.
“He’s probably looking at it saying, ‘I don’t want another Neymar’, what happened with him at PSG, he got Emery the sack at PSG.
“So is it going to be the same situation here?
“He’s on big, big wages and that’s the problem with another club trying to take him, whether Arsenal have to pay a bit of wages I don’t know.
“You don’t want to see quality players going, but is there a place for him in the side?
“I don’t know when you’d put him in the side at the moment.
“If you play three at the back it’s very hard to put him in, and if you play four at the back there’s one spare place in the midfield but Emery might look at it and think other players deserve the opportunity over Ozil.
“People like [Aaron] Ramsey and people like that.”
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