Arsenal boss Unai Emery praised Mesut Ozil after he captained the Gunners to a 10th successive victory with a comeback win over Leicester on Monday.
The Foxes deservedly took the lead at the Emirates Stadium through Hector Bellerin’s own goal before Ozil levelled on the stroke of half-time.
The German, captaining Arsenal from the start for the first time, then played a pivotal role in a Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang brace as the striker came off the bench to score twice for the second game running and secure a 3-1 win.
|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| 10 IN A ROW |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / づ pic.twitter.com/gWS1Gy6Qhy — Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) October 22, 2018
Aubameyang’s second was the end result of a sublime team goal, with Ozil at the heart of the move.
Ozil himself described the display as “sexy football” in a social media post and Emery was also pleased – although the Gunners head coach made it clear he expects even more from his stars.
“Today I am very happy,” he said after the win.
“The performance is together and also each player showed us their quality, their capacity, and we are also demanding a lot of quality from ourselves.
“Mesut Ozil had a very good performance today. We are going to push to demand more from ourselves and from him also.
“In the team we have a lot of players with this capacity (to be captain) because each player can help us with their quality and capacity.
“We have very clear captains and each one is important, but I think he (Ozil) can play every match with his commitment and his quality.
“We are going to demand this commitment and behaviour from every player, and then with our quality we can help each other on the pitch.”
The victory takes Arsenal up to fourth in the Premier League, just two points behind Manchester City and Liverpool.
Leicester boss Claude Puel was left frustrated his team were not awarded a first-half penalty for a handball by Rob Holding.
Puel also felt the defender should have received a second yellow card for the offence.
“I think of course we deserved another result, we played a brilliant first half, a fantastic performance with good quality, discipline and structure,” said Puel.
Not good enough in the second half. First half needed to be more clinical and take advantage. Thanks for your support. Safe trip home. 🦊⚽️ #LCFC — Harry Maguire (@HarryMaguire93) October 22, 2018
“In this game all the bad moments went against us.
“It was a penalty and a second yellow card (for Holding). This could change the game of course.”
Puel confirmed striker Jamie Vardy was removed late on due to a stomach bug as Leicester finished the match with 10 players on the field.
The Foxes boss then joked Vardy could not stomach the Holding penalty decision going against his team.
“It’s a stomach problem, yes,” said Puel. “He couldn’t digest the penalty decision!”
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