Arsenal vs Ludogrets: Arsene Wenger praises Mesut Ozil's new desire to add goals to his game

German is pushing further up the pitch says his manager

Mesut Ozil volleys home his third goal at The Emirates (Getty)

Arsene Wenger was delighted with the rocketing goal-scoring form of Mesut Ozil after the German scored his first hat-trick in senior football to lead Arsenal to a 6-0 Champions League thrashing of Ludogrets here at The Emirates on Tuesday night.

Ozil now has six goals in 10 games this season – he only scored eight in total last season – as he is playing higher up the pitch and getting in behind the defence more frequently. His partnership with Sanchez in the No 9 role is perhaps helping with the Chilean’s movement creating space for Ozil to move in to.

“He looks like he gets the taste to score goals because he goes more in behind [the defence],” Wenger said. “Before he liked only to come to the ball and provide. We want him to be a provider and a scorer. He looks like he is slowly moving to that better balance.”

Wenger bemoaned Arsenal’s lack of goals last season as costing them the title but the team has rectified that problem this term. How have they done that?

“Maybe the confidence is high,” Wenger said. “Maybe we have a good balance in the team. Maybe we make more of our chances. Is it that the final ball is better, our finishing is better? It is difficult to analyse. What is for sure is we score more goals. That’s what our game is about. We have a risky game therefore it is important we take our chances.”

Arsenal did that and Ludogrets didn’t otherwise the score-line by half-time could have been very different.

Mesut Ozil has added goals to his game this season (Getty)

“In the first half it looked a difficult game because they were dangerous going forward,” Wenger said. “They had good technique in small spaces and were good on the counter-attack. It was not easy. In the second half we took control of the game completely. We could have scored more because they had given a lot in the first half and they suffered physically in the second half.”

Was Wenger worried about the signs of defensive vulnerability though? “We scored early and maybe we eased a bit off too early,” he said. “It’s funny because the more goals we scored the better we defended. In the first half we were in danger with runs coming from deep, the strikers came into midfield and flooded the midfield. They got out of pressure and we were in trouble twice. We have to give credit to David Ospina who made two important saves.

“In this game a lot is linked with confidence and I feel that at the moment because we win game after game we can get over dodgy periods with less psychological damage. What you want is to get them out as well.

“We could have paid against Swansea [in the tight 3-2 win at the weekend] for the chances we gave away. But if you score three the opponent has to get four to beat you. Let’s continue to score goals and get these lapses of concentration out of our game.

“We are a very offensive team. If you do not focus on defending we can become a bit vulnerable. The structure is more focusing on attack than defending.”