Mats Hummels has backed his German international teammate Mesut Ozil to come through his spell of poor form, and doubted that he would be dropped by Arsenal ahead of their meeting as opponents at Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena on Wednesday.

Ozil has not scored in two months and, after a string of underwhelming performances, even Arsene Wenger admitted that the player does not look confident. That has led to the possibility the Arsenal manager will drop his key playmaker for this crunch meeting, but Hummels did not feel that would be the case.

“It’s a surprise to hear that Mesut is doubtful to play because to me he’s a world-class player. That’s the first time I hear that. I don’t think so. I think he will be on the pitch from the first minute. He is a class player.

“Of course we have to make him play not good tomorrow because that would be bad for the result. Every offensive player has his good and bad moments. You can’t just project it on one player. You can’t say that any one offensive player always delivers in every big game.”

Hummels had similar words for his club-mate Thomas Muller, who is in similarly poor form at the moment, leading to reports that he could even leave Bayern in the summer. The central defender insisted, however, that Muller is in confident mood.



“First of all on Saturday [in Bayern's 2-0 win over Ingolstadt] he prepared, gave an assist for the first goal. I don’t think he’s sad. He doesn’t need support from us. He knows offensive players have good times, bad times. That’s normal.