"Mesut Ozil needs time" - Wenger

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger admits Mesut Ozil needs time to recover from the disappointment of missing his penalty against Bayern Munich on Wednesday night.

Ozil had the opportunity to put the Gunners ahead after just nine minutes of the Champions League last 16 first leg when he was brought down in the area, but his tame effort went straight at Manuel Neuer.

The German international took to his Facebook page to apologise for the miss and Wenger believes he will need to be given time to recover from the disappointment.

“Certainly not. 48 hours is a bit short. It’s part of the job to deal with disappointment and prove you can get on with it,” Wenger said.

“He apologised after the game. I don’t think people are shocked he missed, it’s just he takes his penalties in an unusual way.

“I believe that at the moment I have to let him recover from that. I have seen this before with Bergkamp, missing in 1999 (in the FA Cup semi-final replay against Manchester United) and refusing after to take any penalties.”

Bayern were awarded their own penalty shortly before half time when goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny was sent off for a foul on Arjen Robben.

Wenger and Pep Guardiola were in agreement that the dismissal was the turning point of the game and 48 hours on the Frenchman believes the goalkeeper should only have been shown a yellow card.

“The common sense says you should divide what is inside the box and outside the box,” Wenger told reporters on Friday.

“Denying a scoring opportunity in the box is restored with a penalty.

“In this case you could say a penalty was a better chance than what Robben had when he was denied. A yellow card would have been enough. Certainly you don’t want to kill a game of that stature.”