Arteta Insists He Will NOT Cut Short The £350,000-a-week Contract of Ozil

Arsenal head coach, Mikel Arteta has declared Arsenal will not curtail the contract of outcast Mesut Ozil, but whether he returns to the Gunners squad depends on how the transfer window goes.

Attacking midfielder Ozil is on an eye-watering £350,000-a-week deal – expiring in six months – but was left out of the club’s 25-man Premier League and Europa League squads back in October.

The 32-year-old German has not played a competitive second for Arsenal so far this season, and his prohibitive wages have so far proved a stumbling block for a transfer away.

Asked whether Ozil, who has stated he wants to stay for the duration of his contract at the Emirates, would rejoin the squad in January, Arteta was non-committal.

He said: ‘We will see what happens in the transfer window and we will assess at the end of that.

‘You have to respect the players’ contracts. You can just try to be open with them, tell them your intentions, the role that they have in the team and why that is.

‘Some would like to move because they are not playing and some would like to stay. That’s something we cannot decide by ourselves.

‘When a player doesn’t play, it is really difficult to be happy.

‘There are players that don’t play at all, they know they are not going to have any chance. That is tough mentally for them, to maintain that motivation and positivity around the place for a lot of months. That’s a big task.Arteta has already made plain his intention to sell or loan out players who are not part of his plans, with Sead Kolasinac to Schalke likely the first of many to leave the club in the January transfer window.