World Cup 2018: 5 aspects of Germany’s play that need improvement

#3 Drop one of Ozil or Muller

Ozil (left) and Muller (right) slow down the game too much

Mesut Ozil, the brilliant playmaker who can pick a pass and open up defences with his movement and Thomas Müller, the high priest of Raumdeuter (space interpreter) football were shocking in the loss to Mexico.

Ozil had one of his typical Arsenal games (to be fair, he is hardly this poor in national colours) where he kept drifting everywhere and yet, was still unable to affect the game with his passing, movement or technical abilities.

Müller is a player who is not particularly fast or particularly strong but one is who is able to use space better than almost any other player in world football. However, the very disciplined Mexican backline especially the centre-back pairing of Hector Moreno and Hugo Ayala Castro were exceptional in closing down the spaces which made him i.e. Muller redundant and ineffective.

Too many times, Ozil and Müller drifted into spaces where Julian Draxler would have made more of a difference given his speed and the German attack became slow and ponderous. Against teams like Sweden which like to defend using a deep block, the pairing of Ozil and Müller would be one that the team does not need.

Staring a point man like Mario Gomez and allowing Timo Werner to feed off him would be a better strategy going forward as this would help the side benefit from the many crosses from the wingers and full-backs especially Joshua Kimmich.