Mesut Ozil – The Bayern defeat was one of my darkest hours

Mesut Ozil has admitted that Arsenal’s humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich was one of the worst periods of his career. He does, however, believe that Arsenal can come back stronger next season. 

Arsenal were thrashed 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich which meant that they were knocked out of the last-16 stage for the seventh year running. In his new book, ‘Gunning for Glory’, revealed that Arsenal were well prepared for the Bayern Munich game but that they ultimately underperformed. 

“The devastating loss at Bayern Munich this season is undoubtedly one of the darkest hours of my footballing career.”

“It’s in the top five of the most humiliating defeats I’ve suffered. We were positively prepared for the game. Arsene Wenger had revealed to us his game plan. He was very clear about his ideas – and they were good ones.”

Ozil admitted that the Gunners had set up to force Martinez to play with the ball but ultimately failed as a team to implement their own tactics. 

“Our intention was to go all out for Bayern’s central defender Mats Hummels; to prevent him from opening up the game which he does so brilliantly.”

“We wanted to force him to play the ball to Javi Martinez, who’s also a fine central defender but who isn’t great at opening up the game. In this way we hoped we’d be able to stop Bayern from building up the play at an early stage and disrupt their rhythm.”

“The fact is, we all failed. We were all bad! We played a game that held a mirror up to our faces.”