If you had said in 2016 that Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez would now be winding down their careers in relative obscurity, no one would have believed you.
Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez joined Arsenal within a year of each other from Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.
Stars that the team sorely needed they nearly, nearly achieved greatness in North London. The best players in the team by far struck up a complimentary partnership that was at times breathtaking.
Mesut Ozil with his subtle, self sacrificing style was the perfect foil for Sanchez’s relentless, boisterous individualism.
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There was a sense that both stars were too big for Arsenal, whose hopes rested upon them. How Arsenal desperately tried to keep them both will in hindsight be looked at as a mistake.
Alexis Sanchez left for Manchester United to pursue trophies. Mesut Ozil stayed, signing a huge contract in 2018, and gradually faded as a force. They took different paths, but fell off the same cliff.
The swap deal that took Sanchez to Old Trafford and sent Henrihk Mikitaryan to the Emirates was a disaster. Neither player took off at their new clubs. Sanchez, who had ambitions to propel United into contention with Manchester City, only scored five goals for the club before they paid him off to move to Inter Milan.
Ozil, the king of assists, was left out of the team by three successive coaches. Why though, did two of the best players in Europe decline so rapidly? For Ozil, it was a matter of style. His understated game became less and less useful in a Premier League that prized physical explosiveness.
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Physical explosiveness is something Alexis Sanchez had plenty off. Too much, actually, to sustain a top level career. Years and years of tearing around the pitch like a man possessed has left him a spent force. Robbed of his intensity, he is not the same Alexis Sanchez.
Now, Sanchez is the subject of rumours of a trade to Roma, where Mikitaryan has rediscovered his form. Ozil has finally left Arsenal to join boyhood club Fenerbahce. A nice move for him, sure, but a massive step down from the top level he ought to play at.
As a result, two players who could have gone down as all time greats will be remembered for making the wrong choices and fizzling out. For a fleeting moment though, they were glorious.
