The Curious Case of Mesut Ozil: Are Arsenal Superstar's Recent Failures His Fault or Arsene Wenger's?

Back in late September, Arsenal fans everywhere celebrated the arrival of Mesut Ozil. The transfer was essential for a number of reasons. It proved that manager Arsene Wenger was willing to spend money when the opportunity came. It also made Arsenal a major contender in the Premier League. For the following months after Ozil's arrival, the Gunners became the top team in the Premier League and seemingly never looked back.

But things changed. And not for the better.

In the last few months, the world has witnessed not only the gradual decline of Arsenal, but also the implosion of its supposed star player.

Let's do a quick summary of Ozil's season thus far. From his first Premier League match on Sept. 14 through Nov. 30, Ozil compiled six assists and two goals; he did that in 10 matches. In the 11 Premier League games since then, he has compiled two goals and two assists.

The German star hit rock bottom on Wednesday when he was embarrassed in a variety of ways in Arsenal's 2-0 loss against Bayern Munich.

He seemed to be ready to play the game and managed to create a penalty kick opportunity. However, his lack of confidence asserted itself at the moment of truth and instead of taking the kick with confidence, he hesitated and wound up shooting it right to goalie Manuel Neuer.

But that was only the beginning. He looked dejected after blowing the kick and his game never recovered. At one point, he had a chance to lead an Arsenal rush but hesitated and passed the ball right to the German giants. He was left on the pitch in favor of Santi Cazorla and continued to look overwhelmed. He was constantly hassled on the right wing by Arjen Robben and Phillip Lahm and wound up getting yelled at by teammate Mathieu Flamini for a defensive breakdown. Many journalists recalled teammate Per Mertesacker's admonishment of Ozil for failing to salute Arsenal's traveling fans after a 6-3 loss against Manchester City.

Throw in the fact that his Germany teammate Toni Kroos bettered him in every respect and you could not have written a more tragic script for the Arsenal talisman.

But what is actually rather shocking is that the other statistics tell a very different story. According to WhoScored, Ozil is actually having a better year with Arsenal than he has ever had.

In 2012-13 he completed 84.1 percent of his attempted passes. A year earlier he completed 87.1 percent of his passes. This year he has accomplished a solid 87.9 passing success percentage. Granted, he has done that in far less matches than he did in previous campaigns, but this certainly illustrates that his play has not dropped off tremendously from an offensive standpoint.

He is also averaging far more passes per game than he has ever averaged in his entire career. His 65.9 passes per game in the Premier League are higher than the 36.9 passes per game that he made in the 2012-13 season with Real Madrid. He never actually averaged more than 46.8 passes per game with Madrid throughout his entire career in the Spanish League. Of course, Arsene Wenger's Arsenal places a greater emphasis on passing than Mourinho's Real Madrid and this must be taken into consideration. But when it comes to key passes, Ozil is also playing close to his peak. He has averaged approximately three key passes per game; he averaged 3.3 key passes during the 2010-11 season with Real Madrid but has never topped this statistic since.

A lot of these solid stats are likely inflated by a solid start to the year and it is still possible that Ozil will regress to his regular career statistics or even drop below them; this all depends on his play for the balance of the season.

Naturally the big question is: what is going with Ozil? His fitness has always been a cause for concern and he was often subbed out of matches under Jose Mourinho during his time with Real Madrid. Out of 52 matches that played in 2012-13 under Mourinho, he only played the full 90 minutes in 16 of those games. The year before that he only played the full 90 minutes in 13 of Real Madrid's 52 matches. This season he has played the full 90 minutes in 18 of Arsenal's 30 matches. One must consider that the Premier League is far more physically taxing than other leagues and this alone may be a major reason why Ozil is struggling.

Part of this blame goes on Wenger for poor asset management and the rest of it goes to Ozil for not adapting to his new situation.

Have you given up hope on Ozil? Or is he still a top player?