An ode to Mesut Özil, the frictionless footballer not designed for the age of rage

T here is of course no connection, only chance correlation, in the fact the top three teams currently in Europe’s top three leagues are also the last three teams to get rid of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Arsenal, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund have all passed on Aubameyang, Dortmund quite a long time ago. And while this is simply coincidence, it might make sense at this stage in the striker’s career, and in a sport that is always seeking marginal gains, for his agent to start marketing him on this basis, punting him around top clubs, backed by hard data, on the basis that hiring and then getting rid of Aubameyang has undeniable benefits.

Here is a player who should be treated not as a regular squad member but as the football equivalent of the sacrificial goats the ancient Greeks would take into battle, to be offered up as appeasement to the gods. Sign my client. Alienate him from the squad under an agreed schedule. We guarantee an Aubameyang Uplift of at least three league places between November and March while he posts pictures of his dinner from Dubai.

There is a serious point here. At a time of bloated squads and destructive superstars, the ability to get rid of players is almost as vital as the ability to bring them in. Manchester United’s squad has been clogged for years with vaguely familiar faces on mind-boggling contracts. Plus, of course, and most obviously, we have the example of Arsenal, where a part of Mikel Arteta’s success has been tied to his ability to wield the cleaver, to slice away various basking low-value players. A large part of which, arguably day one on the journey from there to here, was the complete exclusion of Mesut Özil from the new era.

With Özil’s retirement from football this week there