Arsenal hero Tomas Rosicky has again jumped to the defence of Mesut Ozil.

Ozil has regularly come under fire for his work rate since joining Arsenal in 2013 from Real Madrid for a then club record fee of £42.5m.

Rosicky spent three seasons playing alongside Ozil at Arsenal and has claimed the assessment that he does not work hard is false.

"I know Mesut very well. I played a lot of games with him. If you always see his stats, he is not the one who is not working," said Rosicky.

"Obviously what the people maybe lack with him, mainly in England, is that he is not the one who is going into the tackles or something like that.

"But if you see it in general – he is working hard. You can see his stats, what he has every game.

"Obviously I don't know about this season [as I am not playing or training with him], but that's what he used to be like and he was a hard worker – even in training. I know him.

"You have to see things in perspective, he is someone who can decide the game by himself."