Arsenal star Mesut Ozil ‘offered sensational £15m-per-year contract by Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr’ as frozen-out playmaker trains with former team-mate Mathieu Flamini
Arsenal star Mesut Ozil has been offered a £15million-per-year contract by Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr, according to sources in Turkey.
Fanatik claim Ozil, whose current deal at the Emirates Stadium expires in 2021, has been subject to an approach from the Saudi Pro League outfit based in Riyadh.
Al-Nassr reportedly want to sign the Germany international this summer, but will try to persuade Ozil to join the club as a free agent next year if a tranfer fee cannot be agreed with Arsenal.
Mesut Ozil has reportedly been offered a £15m a year deal to join Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr
The out-of-favour midfielder has been training with former Gunners man Mathieu Flamini
The playmaker has been ostracised from Mikel Arteta's squad, making 23 appearances in 2019-20, and the Gunners are exploring their options as they look to offload one of their highest paid players.
In the meantime, the 31-year-old has been training with Getafe midfielder and former Arsenal colleague Mathieu Flamini, with the pair posting a picture from their session on Insagram.
Ozil's caption read: 'It's always fun working out with people who motivate you.'
Sidelined star Ozil also believes the pressure on a number of his team-mates was 'not fair'
It is unlikely Ozil will be accepted back into the fold at Arsenal after he publicly criticised the club hierarchy earlier this month, suggesting the squad had been 'rushed' into taking pay cuts during the coronavirus crisis.
Ozil said: 'We needed more information and many questions were unanswered. Everyone was fine with a deferral while there was so much uncertainty... and then a cut if required, once the financial outlook was clearer. But we were rushed into it without proper consultation.
'You have a right to know everything, where the money is going. But we didn’t get enough details, we just had to give a decision. It was far too quick for something so important and there was a lot of pressure. This was not fair, especially for the young guys, and I refused. And when you see what has happened now with the jobs (55 redundancies), maybe I was right.'
Arteta has defended the decision by the club to announce 55 redundancies this summer
But Arteta, speaking ahead of his team’s Community Shield clash with Liverpool on Saturday, dismissed the idea that players were not put in the picture and defended the club’s decision to lose jobs.
'The club had a very thorough plan of how they needed to restructure in order to be more stable for the future,' said the manager. 'They were very convincing with every argument they gave to all of us that it was the right thing to do.
'The players were happy to contribute in this difficult financial position. That doesn’t mean that afterwards you are going to have a say in every decision made by the club. It can’t work like that. At the end of the day it wasn’t an obligation, it was a choice whether you wanted to do it or not.
'We tried to do the right things as human beings to help a club that has been supporting us, in my case for many years, and in others cases here as well, whether you were injured, sick, performing or not performing. We believe it was the right thing to do and then the club has to be free to try to fight for the future in the most positive and stable way.'