Ozil Was Sick Ahead Of Man City Clash – Wenger

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger expects the club to “deal” with Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez’s contracts in May.

Arsenal sealed their supporting role behind Leicester in the Barclays Premier League Christmas billing by beating fellow title hopefuls Manchester City 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium last night.

“I believe for us the most important thing is to focus on ourselves, and not to speculate too much on any weakness of Southampton”, Wenger said.

Wenger said that in-form Sanchez and Ozil are required to display their full concentration towards the upcoming league matches at the moment. “He had only one training session”, Wenger said. “So for a guy who could not prepare well, he has done extremely well physically”.

“I believe we will benefit from players coming back into the team, once they are fit”.

The win sees Arsene Wenger’s men go two points behind shock leaders Leicester, with the Gunners now many people’s favourites to end their Premier League trophy drought and lift the title in May. “Confidence is built up very slowly and goes very quickly, so let’s take care of our next performance”. They were bottom of the division on December 25 past year but now sit two points clear at the summit. “Sometimes you make mistakes, but you have to move on and stay strong”.

– Arsenal have won the most Premier League points away from home in 2015 so far (38).

Arsenal will face Bournemouth just two days after taking on Southampton.

On the other side of the table, Southampton have lost four of their last five league games and lost to Arsenal’s north London neighbours Tottenham Hotspur las weekend.

“In our team, most of the time, Ozil is this player”.

City will worry more about their own frailties than Arsenal’s strengths though, having started without the injury-hit Vincent Kompany for the 16th time in all competitions this season – and failed to keep a clean sheet in his absence for the 16th time.

“We missed passes, we missed goal chances but you could not fault the attitude of any player at any second”.

“So with Vincent returning to the team, with David (Silva) and Sergio (Aguero) playing normally every week, I suppose we are going to continue being an important team in the fight for the title”.

“We will give our best all the season for the title”.

Reprising their tactics from January’s 2-0 breakthrough win at the Etihad Stadium, Arsenal sat back, and De Bruyne drew a save from Cech after cutting in from the right flank and letting fly with his left foot.