Arsenal fans spent Wednesday reminiscing about the past as Mesut Ozil announced his retirement from football.
The German – who made 254 appearances for Arsenal – has decided to hang up his boots following a remarkable career which involved winning the FA Cup on four occasions with the Gunners.
As Arsenal fans reminisce about Ozil’s best days at the Emirates Stadium, let’s take a glance at what the starting XI looked like when he made his debut back in September 2013.
Arsenal XI when Mesut Ozil made his debut
Arsene Wenger named a slightly odd backline for Ozil‘s Premier League debut in September 2013, following the playmaker’s £42.4m move from Real Madrid – the overall XI was pretty strong, nevertheless.
It saw Bacary Sagna play as a makeshift centre-back with Carl Jenkinson on the right as Arsenal recorded a 3-1 win over Sunderland at the Stadium of Light, in a controversial match which involved Paulo Di Canio receiving a red card.
You can see the Arsenal XI from the day of Ozil’s debut below.
It famously took Ozil just 11 minutes to register his first assist for Arsenal, expertly picking out Olivier Giroud for the Frenchman to put the Gunners 1-0 up.
It was the first of 79 assists in an Arsenal shirt for Ozil – he also scored 44 goals for the Gunners.
Wenger eventually substituted the German in the 79th minute with Arsenal leading 3-1 on Wearside.
As WhoScored shows, Ozil was superb throughout.
Aside from his clever assist, the Gelsenkirchen-born playmaker embarked on three successful dribbles, more than any other player on the pitch, while also registering three key passes and a shot on target.
Ozil came away from the Stadium of Light with a pass success rate of 89.9% on his debut, in what was a sign of things to come from a man who had just become Arsenal’s club-record signing to huge excitement from the fans.