Mesut Ozil's moment of magic gets Arsenal back on track against struggling Newcastle

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For the second time in four days Arsenal dominated a game against unambitious opposition, and created and missed mountains of chances. They had to leave West Ham on Wednesday with a 0-0 draw but this time, against Newcastle United, they had that extra quality to turn the game. It came, as if often does now, from Mesut Ozil, who scored the only goal with a brilliant first-half volley.

For years Alexis Sanchez has been Arsenal’s best player and yet there can be no doubt now, after the recent home wins over Tottenham and Huddersfield, that Ozil is their leading man. Without his skilful execution this would have been another frustrating day. But with Ozil’s goal, they got the win and moved back up to fourth.

Arsene Wenger spoke at length at his Friday morning press conference, looking back at the West Ham game, about the “modern problem” of teams who, facing the big six, only want to defend. Fans accept it, managers perfect it, and it turns a good portion of Premier League matches into repetitive exercises of attack versus defence.

That is exactly what happened here. Even by their usual standards, Arsenal hoarded possession, faced with a Newcastle side with barely the slightest interest in getting on the ball until the very end. For the first hour, at least, the only Arsenal players behind the ball were their two centre-backs, Laurent Koscileny and Nacho Monreal, and of course Petr Cech. Everyone else was focused on trying to pick Newcastle apart.

Wenger said that the key in games like this was to play with “speed of passing, co-ordinated movement and incisive movement,” and there could be no argument with the quality of their performance. The only problem is that they only scored one goal.

The first hour was all one-way traffic, and with more precision, or more luck, depending on your view, Arsenal would have put the game away easily. Alexis Sanchez fired one over the bar, Ainsley Maitland-Niles fizzed another just wide before the brilliant goal that won the game.

Sanchez had a shot blocked by DeAndre Yedlin and the ball flew back up and out to Ozil on the edge of the area. He steadied himself and then, with the ball uncomfortably close to his body, still executed a perfect volley, cracking it back and high into the net. It was the type of goal, technically difficult but executed with a shrug, that Ozil specialises in. Showing that he can still do things for this team that no-one else can.

After then it felt like a matter of how many Arsenal would score. Hector Bellerin hooked one over, Xhaka shot off target and Ozil was forced wide when going for his second. The start of the second half brought more of the same: twice each Alex Iwobi and Alexandre Lacazette bore down on goal only to miscue their finishes. So Wenger threw on Danny Welbeck and Olivier Giroud, and the French veteran nodded down to Jack Wilshere, who could not score. When the team misses this many good chances, it is hard to blame Wenger.

Of course the cost of all of this is that the game was never dead, and Newcastle managed to exert some pressure and inflict some anxiety in the final 20 minutes. They did not have much quality but then Rafa Benitez is making the most of extremely limited resources right now. Joselu’s shot deflected off Xhaka, wrong-footed Cech but flew just wide. Ayoze Perez got up to head at goal but missed the target.

It was not enough to rescue a point, which was always going to be unlikely given the imbalance between the sides. Arsenal should have run away with it but they did not. They will not be able to rely on Ozil’s unique brilliance forever, though.

Arsenal (4-2-3-1): Cech; Bellerin, Koscielny, Monreal, Maitland-Niles; Xhaka, Wilshere; Iwobi (Welbeck, 73), Ozil, Sanchez (Coquelin, 89); Lacazette (Giroud, 73)

Newcastle (4-4-1-1): Elliot; Yedlin, Lascelles, Lejeune, Manquillo; Murphy (Gayle, 68), Hayden, Merino (Diame, 82), Atsu (Ritchie, 54); Perez; Joselu