Arsene Wenger says he initially thought Mesut Ozil was taking too long to score before he grabbed the winner as Arsenal completed a memorable comeback to beat Ludogorets 3-2 in the Champions League.
The Gunners booked their place in the knockout stages with the victory although they remain level on points with PSG at the top of Group A after the French champions beat Basel.
However, the evening started badly for Arsenal with the hosts going 2-0 up after just 15 minutes thanks to goals from Jonathan Cafu and Claudiu Keseru.
The visitors refused to panic, however, with Granit Xhaka halving the deficit before Olivier Giroud equalised just before the interval.
Ozil then popped up with a sublime winner in the 87th minute, flicking the ball over the goalkeeper before leaving two defenders on the floor as he slotted the ball into an empty net.
Speaking after the game Wenger spoke about Ozil’s goal and admitted he was anxious that the chance had passed his star man by initially.
“That’s the strength of the great players – they make the right decision,” he told BT Sport. “I thought for a while he took too long to score but at the end of the day when they score you have to say well done.”
The Arsenal boss also revealed that he was most pleased with his side’s composure after they coped with going two goals down away from home, against a side they had thrashed 6-0 previously.
“Not to panic at 2-0 down [pleased me most] and we kept our composure and stuck to our game overall. We were surprised by the speed of their start, we were caught cold,” he added.
“But we kept our composure and came back to 2-2 which was positive. After that we were less fluent but we kept trying and we got the goal at the end.”
Ozil’s goal was yet another moment of genius from the Germany international who has now scored six goals in his last eight games for the Gunners.