It’s fair to suggest that Mesut Ozil’s Arsenal career has not gone quite how he would have liked. The midfielder has struggled with injuries, a lack of form and often being played out of position during his time at Arsenal, causing the World Cup winner to show only glimpses of his undeniable class.

The German announced his return to the Arsenal setup at the weekend when he was handed a start against Chris Hughton’s Brighton side in the FA Cup. Despite the fact that Tomas Rosicky stole the headlines with a superb performance, Ozil did get on the scoresheet, calmly slotting past David Stockdale to send Arsenal into a 2-0 lead. In a game that also saw Theo Walcott fully return to action, Ozil’s encouraging performance will sit well with Arsenal.

The prospect of the German developing an understanding with Alexis Sanchez in midfield is sure to be an exciting one for Gunners fans to consider. Despite the club’s midfield boasting some of the best talent in Europe, accommodating Sanchez and Ozil into the same team could be difficult. Sanchez has been instrumental in every impressive Arsenal performance this season and he almost seems to have a free rein in midfield. If Wenger chooses to bring Ozil back into the team, he must play the former Real Madrid man in a central role. If Ozil is placed on the wing to allow Sanchez to play more centrally, Arsenal will see a different, dejected player who does not suit a wide midfield position. Ozil works best in the thick of things, often providing chance after chance for the striker. His vision is exquisite at times and although Arsenal fans have been frustrated with his performances, he needs a run of games in the right position to really be effective.

This is why Sanchez must be played out wide instead of Ozil. The Chilean is a different player, he is incredibly fast and very direct, choosing to go for goal rather than pick a pass. Although Sanchez is still very capable of providing an assist (he has seven in the Premier League already), Ozil needs to play in a central position as Sanchez has been outstanding in wide areas for both Barcelona and Arsenal.

Wenger could also opt for a rotational policy during matches which could see Ozil and Sanchez occupying different positions in the midfield across 90 minutes. There are a lot of possibilities for Wenger to look at now that Ozil has returned and the German may feel that he can comfortably produce his best football now that he is no longer in the limelight. He will undoubtedly carry a weight of expectation but the form of Alexis Sanchez means that at times, Arsenal certainly haven’t missed Ozil. Psychologically, this bodes well for the midfielder as there is not an unrelenting pressure on the German to immediately perform at the highest level.

Arsenal fans should be excited at the prospect of Ozil returning to the starting XI. His name is added to a host of excellent options in the midfield area and there is no doubt that the German will be hungry to impress. Yes, his form has often been questioned since he arrived at Arsenal. However, if he plays in his best position and escapes further injury issues, there is no denying the fact that Ozil is a world-class player who will undoubtedly produce the spectacular in the right playing environment.

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Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and Jupp Heynckes. All have achieved the elusive, the incredibly problematic, the near-on-impossible: winning a Champions League treble. Emphasis must be laid on ‘Champions League’, because a distant cohort of other top managers have won ‘trebles’ in Europe too – Gerard Houllier at Liverpool, Andre Villas-Boas at Porto – but neither have included their club’s top domestic league title and the Champions League.

Last week, it seemed like Mauricio Pochettino was reminding us all just how difficult it is to successfully compete in three different competitions for an entire season and somehow come up trumps. Liverpool and West Ham held them up in the league, a meagre trip to Florence saw all of their Thursday night endeavours laid to waste in the Europa League and Diego Costa polished off Chelsea’s victory at Wembley in the Capital One Cup final.

In the space of one week Spurs went from being a multi-challenging European hotshot to a beaten and bruised sleepwalker, with all of the optimism surrounding their season extracted from them in an instant.

Spurs mightn’t have looked good but their situation was hardly as bad as some of their European counterparts in the past. That infamous example that you can’t help but wince at is Klaus Topmollers 2001/2002 Bayer ‘Neverkuson’, which lost the Bundesliga on the final day, fell short against Schalke in the German cup final, and stood still in the Champions League final when Zinidine Zidane scored that goal.

Leverkuson’s deterioration was a failing multi-competition challenge at it’s most brutal, but helps illustrate how difficult it is to remain consistent throughout an entire season at every stage of varying competitions. Ferguson perhaps deserves the most credit for his 1999 United team’s exploits because it was entirely revolutionary at the time – squad rotation was not a practiced art and United had an outrageous run of tricky fixtures to reach their respective finals.

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These achievements, clearly, also all involve large degrees of fortune. Not withstanding United’s incredible turnaround in the Champions League final, Denis Bergkamp should have seen Arsenal through against United in the FA Cup Semi’s. As Didier Drogba would infamously rage, Barcelona never should have got past Chelsea in the Champions League semi final in 2009.

Inter came through a freakish clash against Barca at the same stage of the Champions League the following year, off the back of Barca having to get a coach to Italy for the corresponding leg due to volcanic ash. Heynckes’ Bayern team perhaps pulled off this feat with the most panache, but even they nearly threw the initiative away to Arsenal in the last-16 when they lost two nil at home and narrowly traipsed through on goal difference. Bayern also domestically played 34 games in the Bundesliga, lessening fixture congestion in comparison to United, Inter and Barca.

It’s easy to forget, in a very plain and basic manner, that only one team can win each trophy each season, and that to have one outfit dominate throughout an entire year makes for a special squad of players. There’s also the frequently understated point on the luck of a fixture list; playing teams at the right time in the right place is completely random, and pundits rarely draw attention to it. Get a tough run of league fixtures in April off the back of an away midweek European trip with a couple of key injuries and you’re sure to fall away.

With the same band of European teams now dominating Europe every year perhaps the achievement will lose it’s significance in the future. Celtic, Ajax and PSV were the only teams to manage it before the concept of the Champions League came to light in 1992, but since then, four teams have managed it – a reflection of the dominance prevalent in modern European football.

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Either way, with English teams having a minor hiccup in Europe at the moment, Italian teams struggling outright, and Barca and Real always contesting everything domestically, perhaps the near future treble winners will be one of PSG or Bayern Munich. Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho will both also be vying to become the first individuals in history to carry out this incredible feat twice.

Perhaps, only an achievement of that magnitude can define which of the two of them is the greatest.

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Recent summer transfer windows have formed some of the biggest turning points in Manchester City’s history.

In summer 2007, Sven Goran-Erkisson spent £46million of Thaksin Shinawatra’s funds on a cohort of players he’d only ever seen on video tape, including Elano, Rolando Bianchi, Verdan Corluka, Gelson Fernandes and Martin Petrov, opening the era of affluence at the Etihad and leading to their then-second highest finish in Premier League history.

A year later, the club smashed their record transfer fee with a £33million swoop for Robinho, alongside Pablo Zabaleta and Vincent Kompany, as Sheik fortunes arrived from Abu Dhabi.

Summer 2010 saw the acquisitions of Yaya Toure, David Silva, Aleksander Kolorov, James Milner and Edin Dzeko, whilst £38million man Sergio Aguero arrived in 2011. Less than twelve months later, City won their first ever Premier League title.

Set to enter the next transfer window trophy-less for 2014/15 however, with fresh blood desperately required both on the pitch and in the dugout, the coming summer could be Manchester City’s most important yet. As one era ends and other begins, every appointment, signing and decision will have huge ramifications on City’s bid to become one of Europe’s most dominant forces. Get it wrong, and they’ll be thrown into purgatorial dormancy.

Although Manuel Pellegrini has his fans throughout the City support, few dispute that the team has slowly regressed under his leadership. They ended last season in a somewhat laboured fashion, albeit with a second Premier League title, and the Chilean’s over-optimistic naivety, his stubborn insistence upon an open and expansive 4-4-2 formation, has once again cost the Sky Blues dearly in Europe – the ultimate platform for success in the eyes of the Sheik owners – after crashing out to Barcelona in midweek.

A manager who had previously won just a single European trophy – the 2004 Intertoto Cup – before arriving at the Etihad, City need a true managerial heavyweight, capable of not only providing instant success but most crucially rebuilding a star-studded squad from the ground up. Fans only need consider the misfortunes of rivals Manchester United under David Moyes last season however, to realise how detrimental the wrong appointment in such a scenario can quickly prove to be.

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After all, the current City starting Xi is slowly but surely coming to the end of its natural lifespan. Their average squad age of 29 is the oldest in the Premiership by almost a year and over the course of this season, the balance between quality and industry has skewed towards the former. Although Yaya Toure, David Silva and Samir Nasri are all fantastic technicians and creators, their lackadaisical approach to defending continues to cost City in the big games. They haven’t beaten any of the Premier League’s top four from 2013/14 since Liverpool in August – their second game of the campaign.

Likewise, City’s inability to put up a worthy title defence for the second time speaks volumes about the mentality of the players. Under two different managers they’ve failed to retain the English crown, and the 1-0 defeat to Burnley last weekend provides the perfect case in point; when it comes to the less glamorous occasions, City just aren’t up for the fight. They’ve become style over substance.

It’s time for somebody to leave the party and make way for new stars. The only alternative is replacing the majority of the first team simultaneously in a couple of seasons’ time, an even graver risk to take. Speculation this morning suggests that could well be the high earning Yaya Toure. Still a great player, but without the superfluous supply of goals from prior campaigns, difficult to justify at £240k per-week.

Of course, it’s a task monumentally easier said. The board will be looking around Europe at the likes of Raheem Sterling, Ross Barkley, Paolo Dybala, Raphael Varane, Alexandre Lacazette and many more youngsters with the potential to flourish into worldly stars.

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But they’ve been here before; Jack Rodwell, Matija Nastasic, Mario Balotelli, and Adam Johnson were all tipped for greatness and never delivered. The harrowing difference now is the diminishing safety net of proven stars to fall back on – some, like Toure, heading for the exit, others, like Zabaleta, naturally declining with age – and the fear of destroying a project overnight that City’s Sheiks have poured billions into already.

That summarises perfectly why the coming summer is so important for City; it will mark the beginning of the end for some, the absolute end for a few, and a tectonic shift in the course of the most expensively assembled empire in the Premier League for all.

City need signings that can underpin their squad for the next decade and a manager guaranteeing success. That’s a hell of a lot to look for in a single summer; mistakes, rather worryingly, seem inevitable.

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When faced with the question “Who is the best footballer in the world right now?” it is difficult to have a definitive answer.

To say football fans are spoilt for choice is an understatement. It is hard to decipher which player is better – Barcelona’s Lionel Messi or Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo. But, why don’t we just stop pitting the two against each other, and just sit back appreciate their talents.

Both players are on top of their game right now. It seems that every other weekend either Ronaldo or Messi are breaking another record, from most goals scored to most hat-tricks in a single season, both of them are duopolising the record books. When it comes to the Ballon d’Or, which celebrates footballing excellence, it is no surprise that it is a constant battle between these two.

As long as these two are lacing up their boots and hitting the football pitches, it is hard to think another player could challenge them for the Ballon d’Or. The closest was Manuel Neuer this year, off the back off an incredibly successful World Cup campaign that saw his national side lift the trophy. But deep down we all knew it was never going to be him.

Ronaldo and Messi have some of the most amazing stats and records to their names. Messi has scored the most goals in a calendar year – 91 for 2012, the most hat tricks in the Champions League and is the only player to finish as Champions League top scorer for four consecutive seasons.

Cristiano, on the other hand, is the first player to score in every minute of a game, the first and only player to appear in FIFPro World XI for two different clubs and is the fastest player to reach 200 goals in Europe’s top five leagues.

Every aspect of football is competitive, but this competition should come to an end. Both players are continuing to excel themselves and it is a pleasure to watch. So, let’s enjoy the exceptional level of football and the records being broken. This is too close to call to name just one as the ‘best in the world.’

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The season may be over, but football doesn’t stop. Manchester United will be busy in the next few weeks in order to line up their new signings ahead of their pre season tour of America.

If Louis Van Gaal gets his way, all of his dealings will be done by early July – no more waiting until 1am on deadline day for paperwork to go through.

Business has already began at Manchester United, though. Memphis Depay has signed from PSV and will officially be a Manchester United player when the transfer window opens on July 1.

Radamel Falcao has already said his goodbyes, as his loan will not be extended. Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez returns to Manchester United following his loan deal at Real Madrid; but he may not be a United player for very long.

And, as always, there are plenty of players who are rumoured to be a Manchester United player ahead of a new campaign. Players who span across Europe; and the rumours are becoming even more weird and wonderful.

United have been heavily linked with Nicolas Otamendi for weeks now. Louis Van Gaal knows he has to strengthen his defence, who were hit massively with injuries last season. Otamendi is on the list along with Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels, Barcelona’s Dani Alves and Bayern Munich’s Dante. Despite being linked to Southampton’s Nathaniel Clyne prior to the end of the season, United’s interest is meant to have ‘cooled’.

Rather bizarrely, Manchester United have also been linked to the likes of Bayern Munich duo Thomas Muller and Bastian Schweinsteiger this summer. Is Louis Van Gaal going to raid the club he used to manage?

Apart from the players who are rumoured to be coming to Old Trafford, there are a few names who are linked with moves away. Everton are set to benefit from the deadwood that is planned to be cleared out of United, namely, Jonny Evans. It is thought that Adnan Januzaj will also be joining on a loan deal, or he could be joining former manager David Moyes at Real Sociedad.

Pogba, Ronaldo, Dante, Lloris – you name it, United have been linked to them already. Louis Van Gaal could sign one of these players, or none of them. The Dutchman wants, and needs, a 20 goal a season striker, he may need a goalkeeper, and will need a strong back line.

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Take all rumours with a pinch of salt, but there’s no doubt Van Gaal will be making big moves this summer.

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That’s right people. The wait is over. This long summer of transfer rumour milling, feigning interest in any other activities that take place on a Saturday and relinquishing power of the remote control is over.And what a curtain raiser it is. Arsenal face Chelsea in the Community Shield in what is sure to be an interesting insight into what this season holds for both sides.Can ‘The Special One’ return Falcao to former glories? What does Petr Cech look like in red? Will Wenger ever get one over on Mourinho? And HOW EXCITED ARE YOU THAT FOOTBALL IS BACK!?You can follow it all on our LIVE Blog HERE, but, in our joy at the return of the Beautiful Game, we also decided to compile a few reasons why this season is going to be the best ever. Enjoy.Friday night footballÂPicture the scene. You’ve had a hard week at work. It’s 5.30pm on a Friday. The weekend is here. You can’t wait for Saturday, but you’ll have a few drinks tonight.You’re in the pub, you look past your mate’s shoulder onto the big screen. And there. In all its glory. Is Premier. League. Football.There’s only one thing for it…https://vine.co/v/Mh9qdu7glTm/embed/simpleHarry Redknapp on BT SportHarry ‘I aint no f***ing wheeler dealer’ Redknapp has added another jobÂto the list of things he can deny being by taking on a role at BT Sport.Expect more fascinating insight from the man who brought you “no wonder he’s in the reserves” and “my wife could’ve scored that”.

It’s going to be genuinely competitive

You heard it here first folks, the top of the table is looking stronger than ever with all the big teams strengthening over the summer and in with a chance of fighting for silverware.

Chelsea are rightly the favourites, but Arsenal won’t be far behind (especially with the addition of a world class striker), LvG is notorious for returning to winning ways in his second season and you can’t rule out Man City either. Hell, maybe even Liverpool will have a go…

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Loads of mental stuff will happen thatÂno one can predict now because that’s not how time works

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Yep. That’s pretty much it. And we’re going to enjoy every glorious, ridiculous, sexy minute of it…

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The January transfer window could be an important one for Newcastle United as they aim to reignite their season.

As it stands, the North-East outfit are staring at relegation as they sit one point from safety after losing eight of their last nine Premier League games.

Manager Rafael Benitez made it clear that he was not entirely happy with the business that was made in the summer, but it remains to be seen how much cash he will receive next month.

According to the Daily Mail, one deal has already been secured and that is the loan capture of Chelsea winger Kenedy.

The publication claims that the Magpies enquired about the 21-year-old in the summer, but were knocked back as Chelsea manager Antonio Conte felt that the youngster was needed at Stamford Bridge.

Now, though, it is believed that the West London outfit are prepared to offload Kenedy, who has made just three appearances in the EFL Cup this season.

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Newcastle fans have had their say on the speculation.

Dean Ashton could really, really play.

The forward scored 74 times in 177 appearances for Crewe Alexandra before joining Norwich City, where he netted 18 goals in 46 matches ahead of a move to West Ham United.

Ashton managed six goals for the Hammers in the second half of the 2005-06 campaign, but his best scoring season for the London club came in 2007-08, when he managed 10 Premier League goals in 31 appearances.

Ashton managed just two more league goals for West Ham, however, before announcing his retirement in 2009 at the age of 26 having failed to recover from a long-term ankle problem.

The striker broke his left ankle whilst training with England in August 2006, which led to several operations.

Ashton tried on a number of occasions to return to full fitness, but ultimately retired from the sport following medial advice.

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Ashton is still seen as a popular figure with the West Ham fans, and many were present on social media on Saturday morning to respond to a quote from the former England international where he hailed the club’s supporters.

According to reports in The Telegraph, Southampton face competition from Inter Milan and Sevilla in the race to sign Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge this month.

What’s the word, then?

Well, The Telegraph reported on December 28 that Saints were interested in taking the Reds forward on loan until the end of the season following Virgil van Dijk’s £75m move the other way, although the latest report in The Telegraph suggests that the Merseyside outfit will only consider a permanent £30m deal.

The Telegraph says that Inter and Sevilla are both keen on the 28-year-old, with the latter already having an attempt to sign the England international on loan rebuffed.

The report adds that Sturridge is being tracked by English clubs and wants to leave Anfield because of a lack of opportunities, but his £30m valuation means that he is viewed as a risky addition because of the injury issues he has suffered throughout his career.

How has Sturridge done this season?

As we alluded to previously, the 28-year-old is keen to leave Liverpool having found himself behind Roberto Firmino in the pecking order for the striker role under Jurgen Klopp this term.

The centre-forward has scored three goals and provided a further three assists in 14 appearances in all competitions, but he has laregly had to make do with cameo appearances from the substitutes’ bench and has missed their last nine matches through illness and injury.

Could Southampton still sign him?

Much could depend on their interest in Monaco’s Guido Carrillo, as they may only want to sign one striker this month.

Sturridge’s reported £30m price tag and high wages will certainly put Saints off, but if his value drops significantly or he is made available for loan nearer to the end of January they could make their move.

With 75 goals in 194 Premier League games he has the quality to end their struggles in front of goal, and the south coast outfit may also want a high-profile addition after missing out on Theo Walcott to Everton.

What’s the verdict, then?

Well, it depends on what Liverpool decide to do, but Southampton will know that they will struggle to compete with Inter Milan if it comes down to a straight choice between the two clubs.

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Tottenham Hotspur were on the verge of suffering a scare in the FA Cup when they took on League Two side Newport County at Rodney Parade.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side were trailing 1-0 following Padraig Amond’s opener shortly after the half-hour mark.

With eight minutes of normal time left on the clock, Harry Kane stepped up to save Spurs’ blushes by scoring an equaliser.

The striker has been in stunning form this season, netting 30 goals in 30 appearances in all competitions.

The England international, who is one away from scoring 100 Premier League goals, was unable to inspire his team to victory.

Tottenham remain in with a chance of reaching the fifth round as they will welcome Newport to Wembley for a replay.

It was not the most convincing display from the North London outfit, and after the game, former Spurs striker Gary Lineker launched a subtle dig at the club on Twitter.

The BBC pundit’s suggestion that the team would be lost without their star did not go down well with everyone.