Henrikh Mkhitaryan believes Unai Emery has merely built on the foundations laid by Arsene Wenger but has totally changed the club.

Arsenal play Wolves on Sunday afternoon knowing that a win (or draw) would take them to 15-games unbeaten in a row. Quite the turnaround when you think of last season.

Speaking to the press ahead of the game, Mkhitaryan said, “Yes, things have changed. And it’s down to the new manager.

“The culture has changed inside and outside the club and people are believing in us more because we’re playing differently.

“We’re playing the way they want us to. We’re scoring goals and winning games – and that’s the best feeling for supporters.

“Our style and philosophy has changed. The new manager has built on the base Arsene Wenger built in 22 years.

“And the players have accepted all his conditions – everything happening is what Unai Emery is expecting and asking of us.”

LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 20: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Arsenal celebrates after scoring his team's third goal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan of Arsenal during the UEFA Europa League Group E match between Arsenal and Vorskla Poltava at Emirates Stadium on September 20, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Henry Browne/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 20: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Arsenal celebrates after scoring his team’s third goal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan of Arsenal during the UEFA Europa League Group E match between Arsenal and Vorskla Poltava at Emirates Stadium on September 20, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Henry Browne/Getty Images)

If Arsene Wenger was watching Arsenal play Leicester on his 69th birthday, he no doubt felt vindicated by what he saw, especially in the second half when Mesut Ozil didn’t so much grab the game by the scruff but ripped its head off. Even Jamie Vardy almost shit himself.

For the last few years of his tenure at the club, Wenger would frequently tell fans, players and anyone else who would listen how close this team was to become something special. Luck, he often said, just wasn’t on their side.

What the great man couldn’t see, however, was that he wasn’t the right man to bring it out of them. His time had come and gone and although he had laid sturdy foundations for another generation of Wengerball, it needed a fresh approach to help it burst forth.

Paris Saint-Germain's Spanish head coach Unai Emery (L) shakes hands with Arsenal's French manager Arsene Wenger during the UEFA Champions League Group A football match between Paris-Saint-Germain and Arsenal FC on September 13, 2016 at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris.
Unai Emery (L) shakes hands with Arsenal’s French manager Arsene Wenger during the UEFA Champions League Group A football match between Paris-Saint-Germain and Arsenal FC on September 13, 2016 at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris.

Many names were linked with Arsenal over the summer, but it seems to me that Unai Emery was the perfect choice. 14 unbeaten in a row with 12 wins would seem to back me up.

Arsenal didn’t need an overhaul as much as they needed something new, someone who could identify what needed to stay and, perhaps more importantly, what needed to change. Others would have arrived wanting to rip it all up in order that they could stamp their own style across the club. That would ever have ended well and it’s debatable whether we would have got 10 games in without serious calls for yet more change. A 12-game-winning streak a distant dream.

Recently, we also had Wenger and Emery make two contradictory statements about the effect Ozil’s international retirement would have on him. Mystic Weg, so often years ahead of the rest of football with his pronouncements, feared it would get to the German. Emery was unconcerned, and it seems he had every right not to be.

Handed the captain’s armband at the start of a match for the first time against Leicester, Ozil was found wanting in the first half. Who from the Arsenal side wasn’t in that game? But the spotlight falls heavy on him as it should now he’s earning £350k-a-week.

Much is made of Ozil’s character, but I don’t know many people who could have made it through his summer unscathed.  His entire country turned on him while teammates from his national team made it clear they weren’t on his side. Bayern Munich quickly identified him as the vehicle in which they would drive away all criticism of their own players who had been so heavily involved in Germany’s World Cup failure.

It shouldn’t surprise any of us, then, that it has taken him a month or two to get his head around his new reality. Money protects you from a lot of things. Incessant and racially-motivated criticism is not one of them.

The Ozil we saw emerge from the Emirates tunnel at 9pm that Monday night against Leicester was the man Arsene Wenger bought and the player every Arsenal fan wet themselves over signing. The performance from the team, first 45 aside, was everything Arsene Wenger told us this team could be.

It was slick and quick, direct and deadly. From Leno to 3-1 in nine moves. Checkmate.

I hope Arsene was watching, glass of red in hand. I hope, as Mesut Ozil dummied the ball to continue his run into the box he exclaimed a little ‘ooohhh’ like the rest of us. I like to think that, as Ozil squared it to Aubameyang for a tap-in he was off his feet, sloshing his wine around his living room.

But knowing Arsene as I think we all do, he most likely simply let out a knowing smile. He did know, after all, just not all of it.