That is the view of former Tottenham manager and Sky Sports pundit Tim Sherwood, who says that the German is the best player that head coach Unai Emery has at his disposal.
Ozil has fallen out of favour under Emery this season despite being the club’s highest earner by some distance.
The 30-year-old – who earns 350,000-a-week – has started only one Premier League game since Boxing Day and looks unlikely to force his way into first-team plans soon.
Sitting out the defeat to BATE Borisov in the Europa League last week meant Ozil had missed 100 games since moving to the Emirates in 2013.
“He can’t do anything right in Unai Emery‘s mind at the moment,” Sherwood told Sky Sports’ The Debate. “For me, he has to play. I would play him. I’d get the best out of him because of what they have at their disposal.
“I don’t think they’ve got the quality of Mesut Ozil. He needs to play and it’s up to the manager to get the best out of him.
“You’re paying him £350,000 a week, to do what? To do nothing. It’s a glorified Fitness First. It’s no good.
“They need to get him on the pitch and playing for Arsenal because it’s their only chance of getting towards the top four.”
Former Gunners boss Arsene Wenger believes the decision to offer Ozil a long-term contract last year may have left the German in a “comfort zone”.
“I feel that the length of the contract has nothing to do normally with the selection of the team,” he said at the Laureus World Sports Awards. “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.
“He has a contract but the problem is that if you want to buy a player like him you have to spend £100m.