• Aston Villa 0-3 Arsenal

Ozil repays Wenger as Lambert left sick in the stomach

Arsene Wenger says he did not consider dropping under-fire Mesut Ozil for Arsenal's trip to Aston Villa on Saturday because he had to show confidence in the club's record signing.

Ozil scored Arsenal's first and created a second for Danny Welbeck in the 3-0 victory at Villa Park, which left manager Wenger delighted in a week his central midfielder attracted criticism from German compatriot Michael Ballack.

"It was at the point where he we had to show him confidence is there," Wenger said. "He showed as well that he can respond under scrutiny.

"He can play everywhere. He prefers to play in the middle, but I find you 10 more players in my squad who want to play in the middle.

"I have many offensive players and you have to find the right balance. It's not always easy. We gave [Alexis] Sanchez a rest because he played many games and we have plenty of experienced players who are not playing at the moment and they are top quality."

Welbeck's goal was his first for the club since his £16 million-move from Manchester United and Wenger was pleased to see his hitman finally get off the mark.

"He scored a similar goal to the one he scored in Switzerland, a cross from the left and he pushed it in," Wenger said.

"The timing of his run is good. He had a very good performance today. His ball retention was good and he had a good all round game for a central striker. Knowing the media, I'm glad he got his goal as quickly as possible because you talk about this."

After Arsenal seemingly cruised to victory, Wenger's counterpart Paul Lambert confirmed his plans for the game were seriously disrupted by a bug that has swept through his dressing room and forced him to change his line-up moments before kick-off.

"We have had so much bad luck this week and even before the game. A virus has been going around and we are going to have to shut the training ground down for a couple of days," stated Lambert, who admitted he had also been affected by the sickness bug.

"Darren Bent pulled out this morning, Nathan Baker pulled out this morning. [Brad] Guzan has had it, [Fabian] Delph has had it. Andy Weimann was sick at half-time. [Ashley] Westwood was sick in the warm-up.

"The lads were running on empty in the second half, so I can't sit here and be critical of the team. It is a tough game if everyone is 100 percent fit, but what happened in the warm up and at half time made it difficult.

"Despite all that, if we had scored when we had the chances early on, it might have given us something to hang on to. We take our medicine from this game and we go again. Ten points from five games is still a good return."

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