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Arsenal’s Record Signing vs Tottenham’s No 10 – Danish Star Wins The Battle Of First Year

The last summer was remarkable for the two rival London clubs. While Tottenham Hotspur had a huge transfer kitty, owing to the money they received from Real Madrid for Gareth Bale,  Arsenal also had the intention to make a mark in the transfer window. It was clear that Arsenal would go for a marquee signing and that came in the form of Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid.

ozil islam
Mesut Ozil

There was a great difference in their transfer through. Arsenal made a bid on the transfer deadline day for Ozil for an astounding amount of £42.5 million and within matter of hours everything was finalised, leaving the fans of the club ecstatic. Spurs, on the other hand, made Christian Eriksen their own player for a meagre amount of £11 million defying interests from other clubs such as Liverpool.

After the season started Arsenal made their mark and topped the league for a long period of time before finally slumping. Spurs had one of the most disturbed season where they fired their manager and could not revive fortunes even after that. But the influences of both the players differed as the season progressed. Ozil’s early influences soon fizzed out and he went on to nurture injury which kept him out of the field for prolonged period of time. But Eriksen established himself as one of the better attacking midfielders and was one of the few positives in an otherwise disappointing season for Spurs. Let us make a comparative study and see for ourselves who had a better first season in English football.

 Christian Eriksen
Christian Eriksen

Both the players missed a number of matches this season and while Ozil played 26 games for Arsenal, Eriksen featured in 25 matches for Spurs. But it is noteworthy that Eriksen scored two more for his team playing less. While he found the net 7 times often winning the game for Spurs with his goal, Mesut Ozil only has five goals to his name after the first season.

Mesut Ozil was the assist king during his time at Real Madrid, where he formed a deadly partnership with Ronaldo. But he has failed to replicate that kind of trickery at Arsenal till now and has made 9 assists, while Eriksen is not far behind at 8. In the number of chances created, both the players have done almost the same with 76 for Ozil to 68 for Eriksen. It may be debated that Ozil did not find the right support at Arsenal with Giroud being the only striker, but so did Eriksen who had Soldado and Adebayor as his frontmen.

But Mesut Ozil is a master passer and this is one trait he did not leave behind at Real. Even in an otherwise dim season, he raked up an average passing accuracy of 88%. Erkisen was behind at 82% but it can be credited to the long ball style of play of Tim Sherwood.

In the end we can say that while both the players did not have the perfect season, Eriksen had a slightly better first term at Spurs and Mesut Ozil has some catching up to do from the next season.