Unai Emery explains exactly why he left Mesut Ozil out of Arsenal's 2-1 win at Bournemouth

Unai Emery hinted after Arsenal’s hard-earned victory at Bournemouth on Sunday that he left Mesut Ozil out of the team because he feared the German would struggle to deal with the home side’s intensity at the Vitality Stadium.

Ozil was left amongst the substitutes during the 2-1 success and didn’t even get up to warm-up during the second half, instead deciding to stay firmly behind Emery on the second row of the bench.

He watched on as an own goal from Jefferson Lerma and a second half Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang strike extended Arsenal’s unbeaten run to 17 games in all competitions and moved them to within one point of the top four.

Ozil may now find himself starting Thursday night’s Europa League clash against Vorskla in Ukraine, raising the possibility of him sitting out the north London derby with Spurs next weekend.

Explaining his decision to bench the former Real Madrid man at the Vitality Stadium, Emery stated that it was something that was decided on during the week while trying to work out a way of dealing with Bournemouth's intense pressing game.

“We thought about how we can be better in the match today, with a very demanding match physically with their intensity against us and [that’s what] we decided,” said Emery.

“But every player is important. Also today we tried with three centre-backs. It was another opportunity to improve and find our best performance.”

When asked whether he doesn’t trust Ozil to perform in an ‘intense and competitive’ game, Arsenal’s head coach added: “In the beginning of the season we were speaking every day about being competitive, we need to be organised and we need individual quality to better our performance. And it’s the same today.”

Having taken the lead midway through the first half thanks to Lerma’s own goal, Arsenal found themselves pegged back seconds before the interval when Josh King finished off a rapid Bournemouth counter-attack.