Mesut Ozil hopes to be involved in Arsenal’s Premier League opener at Fulham after playing his first game in six months at the weekend.
Ozil was frozen out by Mikel Arteta for all of Arsenal’s 13 matches after lockdown last season and the club hoped to offload the £350,000-a-week midfielder.
But Arteta is resigned to Ozil seeing out the last year of his contract and brought the 31-year-old back in from the cold in Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Aston Villa.
Ozil’s last appearance for Arsenal was in their 1-0 win against West Ham in March.
After the game against Villa, Ozil tweeted: “Season prep is on.”
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice for Arsenal against Villa but the Gunners suffered defeat in their final pre-season friendly. Jacob Ramsey scored twice for Villa and Douglas Luiz was also on the scoresheet for Dean Smith’s side.
Arsenal begin the new campaign away at Premier League new boys Fulham in the lunchtime kick-off on Saturday.
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