Mesut Ozil went from the most unifying figure at Arsenal to the most polarising before he was eventually ushered out of north London.
He jumped before he was pushed in January 2021, albeit the Gunners didn't half have to give the German a serious shove. Ozil was cast aside, initially by Unai Emery, before Mikel Arteta kept it up and eventually the World Cup winner appeared to get the message.
Ozil's highlight reel and his performances in big games could not have painted more contrasting pictures. The perception, which was largely fair, being that he didn't turn up for the heavyweight contests - and that was before he had the wage card thrown at him, such was his £350,000 weekly income.
When it came to the finances, though, no one seemed to care when Arsenal broke their transfer record on him in the summer of 2013. If anything it was heralded as a change in approach after seeing the Gunners buy young talent and sell their best players at their peaks for several years.
Ozil was the player, who would go on to win the World Cup a year later, that galvanised the club and had an immediate impact as Arsenal mounted a title challenge that would eventually fade in February. Moments of brilliance accompanied regular frustration, but it was the signing of his new deal in 2018 that would be the beginning of the end.
Arsenal needed to save face after Alexis Sanchez was allowed to leave and they seemed to hand Ozil the cheque book in order to retain his services. Arsene Wenger sanctioned the deal; the problem being he would leave just months later and one of the German's key allies was gone - and others soon followed.
Emery tried, persevered somewhat, but eventually decided that Arsenal might actually be better without the playmaker. The then No 10 was slightly out of fashion and those that couldn't adapt were cast aside, much like Ozil was. The Spaniard has since said: "His performances are unpredictable. He's a bit below the top players at the moment. Sometimes Arsenal play better with him but other times he doesn't make such a difference."
The feeling that he failed to produce on the big stage was underlined by a sub-par showing in the 2019 Europa League final defeat to Chelsea. Arteta would replace Emery after 18 months and Ozil had a clean slate from which to work, albeit he clearly made little use of it.
The German featured in all but one of Arteta's first 10 league games, but his career nosedived after football returned following its extended break due to the coronavirus pandemic. The reasons for that perhaps lay in the events between the Premier League pausing and then resuming however.
Arteta made a major call for Arsenal's players to take a wage cut, like many industries around the globe. The majority of the squad agreed, but Ozil wasn't one of them and his decision to continue taking his hefty wages amid 55 redundancies within the club left a sour taste in Arteta's mouth.
It could be argued he never really recovered from that situation, although he cited "footballing reasons" behind Ozil's constant omission. He didn't play again for the Gunners, being named as an unused sub on two occasions as the final matches of the campaign were played out.
Arsenal and Arteta would then go one step further, leaving him out of their 25-man Premier League squad for the 2020/21 season. Weeks later they did the same when submitting their squad to UEFA ahead of their Europa League campaign.
Arteta did take some credit - whether this was a diversion tactic or not. The Spaniard claimed it was on him to get the best out of the playmaker, which he'd been unable to do. “My job is to get the best out of every player, to contribute to the team performance,” he said, shortly before Ozil's exit.
“Here I feel at the moment, today, that I have failed. I want the best possible Mesut for the team. And in some moments I was able to get close to that, and at the moment I have not been able to do it because I have to make the decision to leave him out of the squad.”
Eventually Arsenal agreed to pay out the final £7m of Ozil's contract and so Fenerbahce swooped in. There was a genuine affinity between the club and the player, with Ozil's grandparents emigrating from Turkey to Germany. A new start, a player with talent and a club desperate to have him seemed like a recipe that couldn't fail, but it could. Ozil faced the same problems he did at Arsenal - rejection.
Erol Bulut was the man in charge at Fenerbahce when the playmaker arrived, but the Turkish club went through a series of managers and Ozil fell out of favour. Jorge Jesus arrived last year and, with the player out of the picture, was happy to declare his time finished.
"He had his time, his space," he said at his unveiling. "He has a beautiful history in Turkey, nobody can take it away from him. He is a well-known player around the world. But I will follow exactly what was the end of the Ozil era."
Within weeks of that statement Fenerbahce followed Arsenal's lead by terminating the player's contract, giving Ozil a sense of deja vu. He headed across the city to join Super Lig rivals Istanbul Basaksehir. Constant injury problems have limited him to seven appearances in all competitions with Ozil now deciding to call it quits on his career that promised so much, delivered on occasion, but more often than not underwhelmed.
