Arteta is unwilling to elaborate but it does not take much detective work to figure out that Ozil, like Matteo Guendouzi, has fallen foul of the manager's "non-negotiables". To bring him back into the side now would be to abandon his principles. Besides, Ozil is just one of many creative talents now unavailable to him.
"Look at the players that we had in the past at this club in those positions," says Arteta. "You go back to (Santi) Cazorla, to (Tomas) Rosicky, to (Andrey) Arshavin when he played there, to (Aaron) Ramsey when he played there, to (Henrikh) Mkhitaryan when he came in. Even Jack Wilshere used to play in those pockets all the time.
"That is a lot of players who are now not here. We have to renew that cycle, because if not, those kind of players won't be there for us anymore.
"They are a big part of what any squad needs."
"Dani is someone who has the ability to play further up, for sure," says Arteta. "But with the needs that we have at the moment and the way that he helps us join the lines together, to make us more stable with the ball, we have to use him there."
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