When Mesut Ozil raced in on goal in the closing stages of Tuesday’s Champions League clash against Ludogorets, Arsene Wenger was certain he would score.
While the World Cup winner’s impudent finish has wowed the footballing world, according to his manager it is just another indication of his evolution into a “killer” in front of goal.
“The difference today is he focuses more on efficiency,” Wenger said. “When he arrived here he was more focused on playing. Today efficiency is more in his mind.
“The main transformation we got from him [is that he] makes more runs in behind to score goals. I always encouraged him. I convinced him that he has it in his locker to score goals.
“He was more focused on giving and looking [before] - today he understands that he can have those qualities but as well be on the end of things.
“The timing of his runs is good. In training I noticed he is a very good finisher. When you have that in your locker, you have to try to get it out. Slowly, he now realises that.
“On top of that he has a fantastic attribute of a guy who is a good finisher - he is calm. You notice all the finishers are killers. That means they keep their nerve in front of goal and he has that.
“What you want from him is that he continues to play like he does at the moment. That means make the runs like he did in Sofia on Tuesday.
“Of course he can be dangerous but in big games there is always a lot of expectation on him. But we have not as wel to think that he will do it, we have to produce a team performance.
“We have plenty of players who can make a difference on the day and not to [always] expect from Ozil to deliver something special.”
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