Mesut Ozil's return to Arsenal's starting XI can't come soon enough following Thursday night's 1-0 defeat against BATE Borisov in the Europa League.

Arsenal completely lacked creativity in the final third as Alexandre Lacazette was forced to feed on scraps, Alex Iwobi showed a lack of end product and Henrikh Mkhitaryan went missing.

Not even Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could rescue the Gunners when he came on in the 68th minute as he kept dropping deep to pick up possession and make something happen.

It's all to play for in the second leg at the Emirates Stadium next week and Arsenal fans will be praying that Unai Emery plays Ozil.

Emery said before the game that Ozil's absence was down to him not being ready to return, but the German's Instagram post from training that day said otherwise.

And when Arsenal's manager was asked in his post-match press conference if they missed Ozil's creativity, he avoided answering the question entirely.

"Every player is OK to play," said Emery. "Today those that were here, we can win with them and we deserved that.

"Last week we won and we played with the same players. We deserved to win but didn't get the result. They were very organised.

"Not for one player or another. We can win with every player and lose with the same players."

It's become abundantly clear over the past few months that Emery doesn't fancy Ozil, who was reportedly offered to numerous European clubs like Inter Milan in January.

But Ozil at least deserves a chance to prove himself and before the BATE game he too made his feelings clear about his current situation on Instagram.

It was spotted that the 30-year-old liked a comment saying: "We miss you bro. Keep fighting and stay strong. Show [Emery], dumb pundits and the whole world they are wrong."

Arsenal's next game is actually against BATE in the second leg of the Round of 32, so it will be interesting to see if Emery gives in to the pressure and reinstates Ozil.

And if he does, Ozil better hope he delivers.