Arsenal: How Mesut Ozil’s unassuming return typifies Unai Emery’s transformation

It was Mesut Ozil’s most exemplary, yet understated, performance in an Arsenal shirt this season. So much so that Unai Emery even offered a rare untainted olive branch to his alienated playmaker after the 2-0 win over Newcastle. “That was Ozil playing the way we want.”

Arsenal’s most exorbitant, and often enraging, asset has quietly reemerged from a trial with Emery that has encompassed the better part of this season without the familiar grace of teenage sulk and stooped shoulders.

It wasn’t easy to get here. There were the training ground strops, the mysterious lapses in his immune system, a tentative toe into the January transfer market to assess what suitors might be lingering on the periphery. Yet the 30-year-old’s unassuming return, without any cultish or divisive fanfare typifies the transformation and trust Emery has extracted from his players.

The less recognised sight of Ozil charging back to the quarters of Arsenal’s own box, tucking into the half-spaces in midfield, and abandoning those spells of mindless floating like a goldfish lost in an oversized bowl, proved his willing to adapt, a gracious adherence to Emery’s way at Arsenal. One which wasn’t scared to leave him behind, and in turn served to level all egos.

Against Newcastle, Ozil covered 10km, had 83 touches and made 63 successful passes in the 84 minutes he was on the pitch. The No 10 has started Arsenal’s last four games and, in those, they’ve scored eight goals and conceded just one. Tucked in ahead of Aaron Ramsey, who himself has adapted to a less glamorous role in the centre of midfield without any fading enthusiasm, there is an air of strength to Arsenal’s spine.

With a now avenged defeat at Rennes the only recent aberration, Emery’s drumming has appeared to finally reach a harmony. Ozil has accepted that he must exchange glitz and showmanship for industry, Ramsey is playing some of his best football at the club despite his imminent departure, even Alex Iwobi jaunts into the occasional dally of tenacious tackler. There is a palpable willingness from the players to cast themselves into his image.

After their 10th consecutive home victory, and favoured fortune of Tottenham and Chelsea’s squander, the issues which were once overbearing and irreconcilable have been smoothed. Of that, Ozil’s muted reformation is the conspicuous flag bearer.

It’s also the faith the Spaniard has installed in a rickety, often bordering ramshackle, defence that serves to show his stamp on the side. A season that began with Petr Cech’s every jittering pass being greeted by a panicked coo from the crowd has culminated in Arsenal’s attacks becoming increasingly direct and a marked drop in time spent idling on the ball by each player.

Despite Laurent Koscielny and Sokratis Papastathopoulos both unmistakably dining on their last legs, Shkodran Mustafi remaining a combustible liability, and long-term injuries to Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding, Arsenal have conceded just nine league goals since the turn of the year – three of which came by way of Manchester City – and kept clean sheets against Chelsea and Manchester United. Nor does any other elite English side show the same ability and readiness to switch between a back-four and a back-five.

The slump after their 22-game win streak earlier this season was always to be a test of fortitude. But now, as the initial buzz and unburdening of this new era has been replaced by expectation once again, Arsenal’s buoyant naivety has steadily amounted to a coming of age under Emery

The Spaniard’s own ability to relent on his stubbornness and reintegrate Ozil into the side shows that he himself is maturing at the club and is comfortable, having struggled to dismiss the same scars of Neymar at PSG.

It is still no guarantee that Arsenal will secure a Champions League spot for the first time since 2015/2016. It is, though, now theirs to lose. After a spell of listlessness and a sad demise to Arsene Wenger’s reign, there was always, even until recent weeks, the imposing sense that this was a squad always set to self-destruct. Now, still in transition, still awaiting changes, instead, there’s a credence to the air of promise and positivity at the club. An excitement that they have reached a benchmark from which the very best is still yet to come.