Ozil signed a £350,000-a-week deal lasting until 2021 last year and Arsene Wenger speculated giving Mesut Ozil a new five year contract may have left him in a "comfort zone" and not at his very best.

Ozil’s place in the team has changed under new manager Unai Emery, starting only one game since Boxing day and bring renewed rumours as to whether he will be at the club past this summer.

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Wenger, speaking after receiving a Lifetime Achievement honour at the Laureus World Sports Awards said:

“I feel that the length of the contract has nothing to do normally with the selection of the team,” Wenger was quoted as saying by the Guardian. “But sometimes there are special cases.Most of the time now we think when we sign a player for five years we have a good player for five years.“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they practice, they play their best. Because they might be in their comfort zone.”

Wenger also said that the club faced the choice of paying a large fee and contract for a replacement or re-signing a player already on their team. “He has a contract but the problem is that if you want to buy a player like him you have to spend £100 million,” Wenger added. “And to maintain the value of the player, beyond the Özil case, it is more about the way football is structured.

“To buy players of top, top quality you need £100m. So the decision you have to make is whether you re-sign the player, who costs us nothing, or do we have the money to buy a new player?”