Arsene Wenger: Mesut Ozil was absolutely magnificent, his passing is a

Hector Bellerin’s deep cross from the Palace right was headed back down goalwards by a huge leap from Sanchez, and the ball cannoned into the net off Eagles captain Delaney.

Wenger looks on during the 2-1 win over Palace On the victory, Wenger took heart from the fact that Arsenal were able to put themselves ahead for the second time after Palace had fought back with a period of impressive attacking play. We have shown important aspects in our game that will be very important for the rest of the season because they came back to 1-1, but we had the mental strength to respond despite the disappointment last week. Palace had recovered from an early mauling by a fired-up Arsenal and had started the second half brightly only for Irishman Delaney to turn Alexis Sanchez’s downward header into his own net after 55 minutes. “I thought Yohan Cabaye was terrific, as were Pape Souare, Connor Wickham, the goalkeeper [Alex McCarthy] and they are all relatively new players”.

Ramsey said he enjoyed his deployment on the right side of the Arsenal midfield against Palace, adding: “It was the manager’s decision and he tweaked things around”.

Over the course of the 90 minutes against Palace, Mertesacker had a pass accuracy of 93%, won 75% of his headers, and made nine clearances and two blocks.

Mesut Ozil took advantage of poor Joel Ward defending and his cross from the left was acrobatically volleyed home bythe Frenchman, reaching behind himself to do so.

“It’s a tough place to come to as an away player I’ve done it a few times and it’s not nice but to have the fans on my side today was good and hopefully they’ll be a key factor in our performances in the future”.

Alexis Sanchez started the game today after making a brief appearance in the loss to West Ham.

While it was still far from a vintage Arsenal performance, there were reasons for Wenger to be encouraged – none more significant than the memorable strike from much-criticised France forward Giroud, who opened the scoring in the first half. He brings the pressure on the opponent. “He’s still a bit short fitness-wise but he’s a fighter”.

He said: “It will certainly be a tighter and tougher league because the quality of teams in the lower half of the table has improved”.