Unai Emery welcomes Mesut Ozil's fit of frustration after Arsenal captain loses his cool in Crystal Palace draw

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James Benge28 October 2018

Unai Emery welcomed Mesut Ozil’s frustration when he was taken off in the second half of Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace.

Ozil stormed to the bench after being replaced by Danny Welbeck in the 68th minute - when Arsenal were leading 2-1 after Granit Xhaka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had overturned Luka Milivojevic’s penalty on the stroke of half-time - throwing his captain’s armband to the ground and avoiding a high-five offered by Emery.

It is not the first time this season Ozil has displayed his disappointment at being withdrawn, he was similarly frustrated when removed during the defeat to Chelsea in August, but Emery insisted he was pleased to see the frustration of his captain on the day.

“It’s normal to not be happy, not happy because the result wasn’t good,” he said. “I like players who show character when we are not playing well.

“Usually every player wants to continue playing.”

Though Ozil had struggled to greatly influence the game without him, Arsenal struggled to carve apart on the counter a Palace team who were committing more and more men forward in search of an equaliser.

Welbeck proved to be a willing runner and, paired with Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, only added to the proven finishers on the pitch. However getting the ball to his frontline proved challenging.

Emery explained: “The last match away in the Premier League, against Fulham, we played like that with a very good result and good transition. We had lost a little the possession with the ball and it was more a game for the transition.

“With Laca and Danny I wanted to find one good transition between two players and score more goals. In the free-kick defensively [Palace were pushing]… Danny Welbeck is very good for this situation.”

Arsenal FC via Getty Images

Emery is not the most demure of managers on the sidelines at the best of times but after Milivojevic struck again from the spot again to draw Palace level he grew even more frustrated, at one stage grabbing Lacazette’s face in his hands as he issued instructions.

“We can make mistakes on the pitch,” Emery said of the incident. “Every day I make mistakes in my decision.

“But the mistakes are to be learned from, not for us to lose our confidence and decisiveness. In the second goal, Laca was maybe less [clear] in his thinking.

“I’m pushing him to find because the second goal is an action where we have the ball in the opposition box and do one backpass. I want the players, when we are in the box, to show the aggressiveness to find the last action to score, shoot or get a corner. His pass, we lost the ball and in the transition they scored.

“They are things that happen in the pitch. We need to continue in our process, learn the mentality for when we are in the good moments and when we are 2-2 I want to push. The response was not very clear for us because it wasn’t an easy game on the pitch.”

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