This is perhaps the best news of all, dependant on your viewpoint.

Mesut Ozil has signed a contract extension after a protracted saga that ebbed and flowed between the German happy in London, to wanting to join Jose Mourinho at United.

Ozil has signed for another 3 and a half years and is now by far our highest paid player on £350k per week.

Regardless of whether the man – or any – has earned this sum of money, what we have to ask ourselves is whether we could have coped without him – would we be less of a team if he had left?

No, we couldn’t cope without him.

And yes, we’d be less of a team.

The facts don’t lie, and since Ozil made his debut in 2013, no other player has made more assists, nor created as many clear-cut chances than our playmaker.

This transfer window improved significantly when Henrikh Mkhitaryan signed. Of course, it was pretty bad to start with when Alexis left, but then we signed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and we were on cloud nine.

We still wanted the news on Ozil though.

When it was confirmed, it made for probably the best transfer window we’ve had.

We’ve pretty much earned this transfer window.

Season after season, we look into the window and watch as the rest of the kids play with their new, shiny toys, while we languish outside, shivering in the cold.

We want those toys, but we’re told we can’t have them. We can’t afford them, so while our ‘friends career around on their racy new BMX, we’ve still got our sister’s hand-me-down, with peeling fuchsia paint….

…and a basket on the front.

So many windows we’ve looked into forlornly and with more than a little envy, but now, WE’VE got the BMX.

And the remote control car. And the Sega Mega Drive.

Advertisement