It’s not like football fans to overreact to an innocuous detail from a team photo.
Wait, let us try that again.
It’s entirely like football fans to overreact to an innocuous detail from a team photo.
Arsenal midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain shared this photo of the Gunners squad enjoying a meal out, but someone’s missing.
Dinner with the boys 🍴 pic.twitter.com/Wo4JneQjr1
— Alex Ox-Chamberlain (@Alex_OxChambo) January 24, 2017
Mesut Özil is nowhere to be seen in the photo, and – while Santi Cazorla and Shkodran Mustafi are also absent, as well as Mohamed Elneny, away on AFCON duty with Egypt – that didn’t stop fans going into panic mode about one man and one man only.
where's Özil bro
— RM (@ryanmcapalot) January 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/jesscampbellftw/status/824004296006057988
https://twitter.com/EhabJohnson/status/824009762278871040
where's Mesut 👀
— Luke – LR8TV (@LR8TV_) January 24, 2017
Still, at least some of the responses were more tongue-in-cheek.
Thrilled to see Özil doesn't hang with you losers irl
— The Boys (Back in Town) (@MisterWenger) January 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/EalZed_19/status/824007095242620931
Perhaps it was Oxlade-Chamberlain’s way of trolling his own club’s fans after they jumped the gun over reported transfer target Riyad Mahrez sitting out a Leicester City photoshoot over the summer.
Or maybe it was much more innocuous than that – after all, Özil had a perfectly good reason for not being with his teammates.
The German is in the Swedish city of Göteborg, with Metro reporting that the former Real Madrid man has been given a short break by manager Arsène Wenger.
It is unclear whether Özil will return in time for Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round trip to Southampton.
Catch up with this week’s episode of 888sport Football Friday Live
