Throwback Thursday: When Arsenal favourite Ozil was the world's best playmaker

In the latest edition of Throwback Thursday, we take a look at Mesut Ozil’s fantastic 2015/16 Premier League season for Arsenal after the World Cup winner announced his retirement from football on Wednesday. 

Before this season, many Gunners fans would crave to have a campaign as they did in the 2015/16 season, finishing second in the table and five points clear of fourth, guaranteeing Champions League football. They did finish 10 points behind eventual shock Premier League winners Leicester, but in truth were not really in a title race at the business end of the campaign and thanks to a 10-game unbeaten run towards the end of the season, alongside Tottenham going on a four-game winless run to see out the campaign, they finished second, above their north London rivals. 

Much of their efforts to clinch yet another St. Totteringham's day as well as a coveted spot in Europe’s elite competition came down to the efforts of Mesut Ozil. 

Ozil finished the season as the Premier League’s fifth highest rated (7.66) player with only Alexis Sanchez (7.72) rating higher among Arsene Wenger’s squad. But in terms of goal contributions, he was Arsenal’s biggest influence, having a hand in 25 goals across 35 appearances, which only Jamie Vardy (30), Riyad Mahrez (28), Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane (both 26) could better.  

Only six of those were goals of his own, scoring against Bournemouth home and away, Manchester United home and away, West Ham and Norwich. 

But it was chance creation where he shone brightest, excelling in every department when it came to forging the opportunities for his teammates. 

In total, the former German international registered 146 key passes, which was 27 more than the next highest Dimitri Payet (119), and to this day is the most any player has recorded in a single Premier League season since we started collecting Opta data from 2009/10. Of those 146, 28 were big chances created, again the most of any player that season with Riyad Mahrez (20) in second. 

As such, when it came down to assists, he was, unsurprisingly, also the leader in the league that season (19), a sum that was one off the record set by Gunners legend Thierry Henry (20) in the 2002/03 season. At one point in the campaign in appeared that he was going to run away with that record having registered 16 assists before January 2016, but it wasn’t to be.  

Some have suggested that the fault for that lay with his teammates as Arsenal missed more big chances (69) than any other side that season, with striker Olivier Giroud (13) having missed the bulk of those for the London club. On the other hand, there were five other players in the league who had missed more big chances than the Frenchman that season, including top goalscorer Kane (17). It's also worth noting that the Ozil to Giroud combination was the joint best assist-to-goalscorer combination in the 2015/16 Premier League campaign, with the former providing the latter with seven assists. 

Though he didn’t receive a perfect rating for any of his performances in the league, his highest rated display was a noteworthy 9.76, which he gained in a 2-0 win over Bournemouth at the Emirates. Ozil scored one and assisted another that day, from a total of nine key passes registered. At the time that was a record for a Premier League match that season, until he himself beat that record in February, registering 10 key passes against Southampton, while he also maintained a 95.1% pass success rate against the Cherries. He also made two tackles and completed a dribble. 

It wasn’t to be for the Gunners in the end when it came down to winning the Premier League and other than the Community Shield win against Chelsea in the August, they were unable to bring any silverware back to N5 in 2015/16. However, for Ozil, that campaign was arguably the best he has produced in a single league season for any club he has played for, and earned him individual accolades that year, including Arsenal’s official Player of the Season award, as voted for by the fans. 

It may not have ended in the best way between Arsenal and Ozil, but for many fans they will want to remember the phenomenally talented player they had at their disposal for more than seven years and most fondly remembered will be that 2015/16 season.