Ancelotti: "I think we made a mistake allowing Özil to leave"

"I think we made a mistake giving Özil the possibility to leave." Ancelotti’s phrase was published in a long interview with Gulf News on 10 January. The sports editor of the newspaper, Gautam Bhattacharyya, says it took place in the Torch hotel in Doha, while Madrid were there for the friendly against PSG at the start of the month.
The phrase concerning Özil is in the eighth paragraph, about half way down the article. The literal text of the article says: ““I think we made a mistake when we gave him the possibility to leave the club. However, we have fantastic strikers and don’t need a back-up after [Gonzalo] Higuaín’s departure.”
The interview, which was picked up by a number of media publications around the world, broke in Spain when it appeared in AS.com, including an indication of the source and a link to it. Madrid didn’t deny the story through any official channels. The club website, the place normally used by Madrid for official denials, was silent. However the club's chief press officer Carlos Carbajosa sent a long text message to certain journalists: “Hello friends, sorry to bother you to refute the claims that Carlo Ancelotti has given an interview to any publication called Gulf News or anything similar. And to deny as well that he’s made any statement to any publication about Mesut Özil in this manner. As you all well know, the position of the coach regarding Mesut has always been the same: maximum respect for him, conscious responsibility of his departure from Real Madrid and satisfaction with the squad he has. He has become fed up repeating it every time he answers a question, to which he always says the same thing. Thinking otherwise makes no sense from a journalistic point of view. The supposed interview and its contents are false beyond a shadow of a doubt, as the vast majority of you understood from the start. Thanks to all of you who bothered to ask me about it before accepting as true something that made no sense.”
On the one had there is this long text message, on the other the interview published in Gulf News, which as well as Ancelotti’s gem of a comment about Özil, contains other interesting reflections: “Ronaldo is our most valuable player, while Bale is still settling down. He was injured initially but has come back strongly. We are working at getting the right combination.”
The departure of Özil remains a hot topic for the Madridistas. In addition to Ancelotti’s comments there is Ronaldo’s vote in the Ballon d’Or. Last Monday, after he collected the trophy, FIFA published who he had voted for: Falcao, Bale... and Özil.
This newspaper attempted to contact the journalist who signed the interview with Ancelotti, Gautam Bhattacharyya, however it was not possible to locate him.