Can Mesut Ozil Be a Title Talisman for the Most Resilient Arsenal in Years?

To focus on Arsenal's resilience in coming back from two goals down to win a UEFA Champions League game away from home, ahead of Mesut Ozil pronouncing his genius via seven touches surely to be acquired by a museum in time, would be akin to being present at the unveiling of a great work of art and waxing lyrical about the plinth, or putting down a newborn to study the umbilical cord.

This newfound resilience will be just as critical to Arsenal's bid for a first Premier League title since 2004 as any longstanding aesthetic excellence, probably more so, but like an indulgent waiter overseeing a three-course meal, let's start with the dessert and work our way back.

Twitter's decision to ditch Vine provoked Ozil to perform a private vigil on Tuesday evening, in front of the rest of the world. It was the quintessential goal to be watched on a loop.

Should Ludogorets Razgrad goalkeeper Milan Borjan and defenders Jose Luis Palomino and Cosmin Moti be subjected to it too many times, the temptation might be to place it around their necks. There are worse millstones to carry.

It was a schoolyard goal scored by a kid who knows he is in a different league to his classmates. The German's blood type is sangfroid.

In his post-match comments, Arsene Wenger spoke as if lecturing Arsenal's kit man on which wash cycle to use, as opposed to discussing a finish so lavish it's rumoured Federico Fellini directed it.

"To me, it didn't look like the optimum solution," Wenger mused, according to The Independent, in perhaps the most non-French-like utterance to have ever passed his lips. If Arsenal ever sack him, he could have a stellar career in HR. 

Given Wenger is to pragmatism what Jose Mourinho is to romance, no one was fooled by his po-faced indifference. Privately, he will have loved it. He's probably had the already-halfway-to-becoming-iconic image of Ozil dropping a shoulder to leave Ludogorets' three stooges looking like Moe, Curly and Larry blown up on a canvas for his living-room wall.

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When Jude Law's character Pius XIII takes confession in Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino's kaleidoscopic new television series The Young Pope, he doesn't bother to whisper: "My only sin is that my conscience does not accuse me of anything."

It sounds like something Mourinho might have said in the days when he was still capable of delivering a killer line straight-faced. To leave an audience second-guessing whether he was being serious, joking or somewhere in between used to be a point of honour. There is no such ambiguity when reading a scowl.

For all his wit and wisdom, Wenger would never publicly match Law's cigarette-smoking, Cherry Coke Zero-drinking Pope for chutzpah. Why bother in any case, when the courage of his convictions is so self-evident every time his Arsenal team takes to the field? 

Arsenal are the work of an auteur, an idealist visionary who was as much talking about himself as Sir Alex Ferguson when in 2002, after the title race concluded in his side's favour to the chagrin of his old sparring partner, he famously proffered: "Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home."

In an address to the club's shareholders at Arsenal's annual general meeting in October, Wenger confessed his guiding principle has never wavered in 20 years in the capital, per the Telegraph's Jeremy Wilson. 

"It is based on a generous idea; that the fan who wakes up on the morning of the game can think, 'I will see something special today'."

It is a generous idea, yet it's one many feel has too often left Arsenal admiring their own reflection for so long the night is over before they have kissed goodbye to the bathroom mirror. The difference between a perfectionist and a narcissist can be slim. 

On a literal level, standing still is an act that draws praise for a child. Figuratively it has been an accusation slung at Arsenal and Wenger since what feels like a time predating colour television, space travel, the splitting of the atom, living in caves.

Ozil would argue it is standing still when everyone else charges about that presents the space to make sense of the bigger picture unfolding. But then had he lived in a cave, he'd probably have invented the lightbulb. Very few are two steps ahead of the rest of the field. 

For those who feel 12 long winters without a Premier League title is far too fallow a period to endure, the accumulation of a handful of cups and as many close-but-no-cigar campaigns has as much exacerbated the situation at Arsenal as softened it. After all, it's the hope that kills you.

It would be a little incongruous to suggest Arsenal stood still over the summer after spending around £90 million, but equally, there was hardly a procession of impromptu parties held in north London when the transfer window passed and it became apparent Granit Xhaka was the marquee signing.

Jogging on the spot would perhaps be a more apt interpretation, even after the late additions of Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez.

Even Arsenal supporters of a sunny disposition would recognise a sobering note of caution offered by the author and essayist George Orwell's take on the relationship between making headway and time: "Progress is not an illusion; it happens, but is slow and invariably disappointing."

If Orwell's words describe a universal truth, though, this might just be Arsenal's year. For this is an Arsenal side making progress, there's no mistaking that. Wenger's longevity should work in their favour. 

A sea change unprecedented in scope at the Premier League behemoths means we are all still looking at Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and—to a lesser extent—Liverpool slack-jawed, as one might look at a particularly peculiar exhibit at a natural history museum. At once capable of evoking wonder and incredulity, they are—by their own managers' admissions—works in progress. Works we are still working out.

Though ominously for the rest of the Premier League, Pep Guardiola seemed to have it all pretty much worked out on Tuesday against Barcelona. Still, Wenger will forget more about his players each day than any of his rival managers know about their respective charges.

Arsenal are not the finished product, yet, but there's a sense Wenger is tinkering rather than ruminating on key issues. His squad looks settled without being complacent, an accusation often levelled in their direction.

Heading into Sunday's derby with Tottenham Hotspur, they have lost just one game all season: the first—a 3-4 defeat at home to Liverpool. And the Gunners have won 10 of their last 11 in all competitions.

Spurs, in contrast, travel to the Emirates with Mauricio Pochettino having labelled their abysmal defeat to Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley in midweek "embarrassing," per the Guardian's David Hytner. It's now six games without a win for a Tottenham side that has failed to score more than a solitary goal in a game since beating Manchester City at the start of October. 

Given Tottenham have not lost a Premier League match all season and are just three points shy of their neighbours, it's unlikely they will be carrying flags the same colour as their shirts when they arrive on Sunday.

However, the fact Santi Cazorla, Theo Walcott, Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal are set to hand Wenger a quadruple injury boost having not travelled to Bulgaria in midweek to rest minor niggles, while Pochettino sweats on Harry Kane, Toby Alderweireld and Mousa Dembele (Moussa Sissoko is also suspended), somehow feels an apt microcosm of the respective mood in each camp. 

Talk of a crisis at Spurs is typically hyperbolic. Being without last season's top-scoring forward in the Premier League, arguably its best defender and the man who makes them tick would knock any side off-kilter.

Although, as Football365's Daniel Storey pointed out via some telling statistics, Spurs' success is too dependent on keeping key players fit. A relative dearth of adequate squad players to replace them when they are not has become a real issue for Pochettino: "In the eight Premier League and Champions League games Kane has missed, Spurs have scored at a rate of less than a goal per game. In the four Premier League and Champions League games Alderweireld has missed, they've taken points at a rate of less than one per game."

Conversely, Arsenal's squad depth has improved exponentially over the past 18 months. Who would have thought buying players could do that? Against Sunderland last weekend, Arsenal went into the game with a "standing room only" sign outside a treatment room housing Cazorla, Walcott, Monreal, Perez, Danny Welbeck and Per Mertesacker, while Xhaka was suspended.

Whereas in previous campaigns Wenger would have been forced to surreptitiously ask Steve Bould if he was still registered as a player (while possibly daydreaming of showing those bloody French he was a better midfielder than they ever gave him credit for), on Saturday they were able to name a substitutes' bench boasting Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey, Gabriel Paulista and David Ospina.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs and Mohamed Elneny came into Wenger's starting XI, and all made strong cases to stay there.

Wenger suddenly has options all over the pitch and not just in terms of personnel. It was noticeable in the 4-1 win at Sunderland how in the absence of deep-lying conductor Cazorla there appeared to be a plan to get the ball to Alexis Sanchez as quickly as possible. It was the correct response to the lumpen sterile possession that characterised the previous week's goalless draw at home to Middlesbrough.

Finally, Arsenal are heeding lessons from disappointing results and tweaking their style accordingly.

With Arsenal moving the ball early, there was no time for Sunderland to set and hold their defensive shape. Taking greater risks in midfield, with Elneny and Francis Coquelin both more forward-thinking than is perhaps their natural game, Sanchez could regularly take the ball on the turn as opposed to with his back to goal. If Spurs press high on Sunday, Sanchez could revel in any space left in behind.

Ozil's newfound taste for goals has seen him dovetail perfectly with Sanchez. The German's willingness to run beyond his team-mate allows Sanchez to come deep and alternate roles to play as a No. 10 at times. Sunderland didn't have a clue whether to go with him or let him drop. They were equally flummoxed over how to deal with Ozil. Nothing a trip to the Nissan factory won't fix.

Twice with passes the recipient would have been proud of, Sanchez played in Ozil, who had sauntered through the centre in that imperious way of his, as though riding a Penny Farthing in a drag race while wearing a three-piece suit. The Chilean has twice this season set up Ozil to score from his crosses, having drifted wide to vacate space for runners from deep to fill.

Sanchez through the middle has been a revelation. He's been so good Michael Owen tweeted he should only be used as a last resort in the position, which should be all the validation Wenger needs to keep Giroud on the bench.

The hirsute Frenchman wants his place back. His first two touches after coming off the bench against Sunderland resulted in a pair of well-taken goals, while he scored Arsenal's equaliser against Ludogorets—a game he started. All three came from crosses, as have five of the seven goals Arsenal have scored in their last two matches. Carry on at this rate and the Institute of Chartered Vampires may have to cancel their time-honoured Christmas meal at the Emirates. Is nowhere safe these days?

Wenger may protest it is nonsense to talk in terms of Plan A and Plan B, but if you can't pass an opponent to death, it's handy to have a proper centre-forward on hand for the type of job usually reserved for a sledgehammer. As the American satirist Jon Stewart once put it: "You can use your idealism to further your aims, if you realise that nothing is Nirvana, nothing is perfect."

Whereas Arsenal's football too often in the past encompassed the overfussy intricacies of a Michelin star restaurant where even the waiters don't have a clue what do with half the cutlery on the table, this season it's as though the penny has finally dropped. Scoring any goal is more fun than nearly scoring the perfect goal.

Not that they are incapable of scoring a perfect goal, as Ozil demonstrated on Tuesday. Sanchez's opener against Sunderland wasn't half bad either. Nine outfield players were involved in a 22-pass move, culminating in his fine diving header. It was impossible to watch either goal without letting out a laugh.

If Wenger is an idealist manager, Ozil is the closest you can get to an idealist footballer. Indeed, if Wenger had been as good a player as he is a manager, he'd have been Ozil. Or at least wanted to be him, for, as Mourinho once attested after a spell working with the midfielder at Real Madrid, per the Guardian's Amy Lawrence: "There is no copy of him—not even a bad one."

It takes something or, in this case, someone special to find common ground between Wenger and Mourinho.

To listen to Wenger speak and to watch Ozil play is to understand how the pair of them appreciate the game beyond the final scoreline.

At times during Ozil's first season at the club, it felt as though the only person inside the Emirates who understood why the German would pass when presented with a goalscoring opportunity was Wenger. When he plays a ball even Wenger didn't see, it must be the closest Arsenal ever get to fulfilling one of his most famous elucidations: "Football is an art, like dancing is an art—but only when it's well done does it become an art."

Perhaps it should come as no surprise when Soccer AM asked who the manager's favourite is at Arsenal, Ramsey was in little doubt (via Metro's Chris Davie): "Probably, Mesut. He's the teacher's pet. He gets a few extra days off than the rest of us. He's always in the boss' room asking for something, and he seems to get it."

Wenger wasn't thinking about Coquelin when he said, according to World Soccer: "A football team is like a beautiful woman. When you do not tell her, she forgets she is beautiful."

Ozil may be the best Arsenal player of the past 10 years, and there's a case to say he's the one who most neatly encapsulates a decade where they have invariably been the prettiest girl in the class, if not always the smartest.

That's not to say they have ever been dumb, as such, it's just that if talent directly equated to silverware, they would have needed a bigger trophy cabinet.

Bar a little teething trouble in his first season, which was never anything like as bad as many gleefully reported, Ozil has been consistently good since joining Arsenal in 2013 for a club-record £42.5 million from Real Madrid.

The difference so far this season, for both Ozil and Arsenal, is a collective reaction to problematic situations. It's as though they are annoyed at opponents' impertinence at posing them difficulties. For a side accused of being too soft, there's a haughty arrogance to Arsenal at present that can only stand them in good stead.

Sunderland's reward for drawing level was a seven-minute blitz in which Arsenal scored three goals, while Ludogorets had surrendered a two-goal lead before half-time.

That it is Ozil leading from the front somehow seems important. It's not his job to be a chest-out leader of men, but in the absence of such characters, as his team's best player, he's making a mockery of criticism he's a flat-track bully who goes missing.

Tuesday's goal was a seventh of the campaign for Ozil. He's never previously managed more than 10 in a season of club football. As Opta's Duncan Alexander dryly put it, 57 percent of Ozil's goals this season have come against Ludogorets, but he's halfway to matching his best-ever tally of six league goals having scored against Watford, Chelsea and Swansea City already. He needs two more to match his seasonal best for Arsenal. 

This season, Ozil is delivering what his manager asked for at the start of last, per the Guardian's Lawrence: "I want more goals from him because he plays in that position and he is a good finisher. But he doesn't take enough chances. He can finish better and we want from him 10 goals this season." 

Ozil looks as if he's determined to prove he's the best midfielder in the world; Arsenal will settle for being the Premier League's best team.

One suspects the former may prove to be a prerequisite for the latter.