PER SHAPED
Arsenal hero Per Mertesacker admits he would get ‘p****d’ off at Mesut Ozil over his attitude
PER MERTESACKER has admitted former Arsenal and Germany team-mate Mesut Ozil's attidue left him "really p****d" sometimes.
The Academy boss, 34, raved about the playmaker's ability with the ball but pointed out that he was not always at 100 per cent in training.
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The former defender - who won the 2014 World Cup alongside 30-year-old Ozil - has released his autobiography Per Mertesacker: Big Friendly German.
And in it, he wrote: “First of all [Ozil] loves playing football. It doesn’t come across so often.
“He is a genius in terms of what he can produce with the ball, you can see that in every training session.
“Once he gets the ball, he’s rested. He thinks he is playing in the park. He can deliver the ball that no one else can deliver. He has got that magical sense.
“But he is not the kind of guy who approaches people and says, ‘You need to do this, that and that’.
“He’s a different character and sometimes I struggled with that. Sometimes I was really p****d with him for days and weeks.
“But he delivered magic moments for us, moments when you thought he could go to another level.”
But Wenger trusted the players he had. I never met another manager who believed more strongly in his squad's ability.
Mertesacker on Wenger
Mertesacker has also shed light on Arsene Wenger's struggles before finishing his 22-year Gunners reign.
The former centre-back believes the Frenchman put too much trust in his players, who let him down.
He wrote: "When he lost one game, we often lost a few in a row.
"We could show off our class across six FA Cup games, but 38 League matches in ten months were a different matter.
"We simply lacked the consistency all top teams need. You couldn't win the League on eight defeats a year.
"Arsene Wenger was always the kind of manager whose belief in his team's qualities was steady as a rock and who approached matters with never-ending patience.
"He didn't lose his nerve during losing streaks, either. He stuck with his convictions and his players, no matter how strong the wind was blowing. It was his greatest strength.
"Wondering whether it was also his greatest weakness and whether he was too lenient with us in, in my opinion, a little too simplistic.
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"If the fans had got their way, there would have been five new top signings every year.
"'Spend some f***ing money!' they would chorus from the stands after defeats.
"But Wenger trusted the players he had. I never met another manager who believed more strongly in his squad's ability."
This Saturday's Premier league sees Liverpool take on Arsenal and Man Utd v Crystal Palace
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