You never know with Arsenal because there have been so many times when Arsene Wenger has spoken of players having only minor injury problems and then being out for ages, but hopefully the knee problem that meant our Germany international Mesut Ozil missed the game at Newcastle will not keep him out for long.
We also have a couple of weeks for Ozil to recover, with the international break meaning that our next Premier League game, at home to Stoke City, is on September 12th. So hopefully our club record signing will be fit again for that because I think we really missed him at Newcastle.
It is often hard to judge just how important the former Real Madrid star is to the Gunners because his style of play makes it look like he is not doing too much, but the boss has often spoken about this and about how Ozil is like the oil in our engine, making everything run smoothly and helping all the players around him to play better.
Ozil did provide a great assist for Giroud to score our only ‘proper’ goal of the season so far and with Santi Cazorla he has created the most chances, 12. THe Spaniard has completed more passes but Ozil is second and his tend to be further up the pitch.
To be fair, possession was not our problem today, penetration was. Against a team defending deep as Newcastle were forced to with 10 men and as Stoke will surely do at the Emirates, the guile and vision of the German could be crucial. So was he the major reason for our struggle to score today?