Not a reflection on Ozil the player, who was good to very good for several seasons, but looking back on his signing I see a point when Arsenal forgot who they were and lost their identity in the market. It was supposed to bookmark a new chapter, and it did in ways good and bad.

Were Arsenal a club who bought off-the-peg, peak age talent from Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich or a club who polished up gems and unearthed players from the wrung of clubs beneath that? Post-2013 I’m not sure that tension was ever resolved.

I don’t think Arsenal were ever comfortable buying stars, but wanted to move on from the ‘austerity years’ to something new. While waiting to see what Europe’s top clubs scrapped off the table I feel Arsenal stopped speculating on talent.

Which led to 2015 when it was Benzema or nothing. Spurs bought Son for £24m from Leverkusen that summer. You can’t buy all the players but that’s exactly the price and selling club Arsenal used to master. If Son came through in 2001 that would have been a classic Arsenal buy.

None of this is Ozil’s fault of course, but I don’t think buying players from Real Madrid is really Arsenal’s place in the food chain. Still struggling with this ‘status anxiety’ today.