Jack Wilshere dismissed his relegation to the bench on Tuesday night as Mesut Özil orchestrated the dismantling of Napoli as "just a formation thing" and said he welcomes the competition for places in Arsenal's midfield.

With Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla still to come back into contention from injury, the manager, Arsène Wenger, is not short of choices in midfield, where the Wales international Aaron Ramsey is relishing his own run in the side.

"It was just a formation thing. I am feeling fine, [Tomas] Rosicky is coming back from injury and needed a game," Wilshere said. "I have played a lot of games recently, so I was just happy to get on and help at the end. When I [first] broke into the team it was similar – there was [Cesc] Fábregas, [Abou] Diaby, [Alex] Song, players like that.

"It brings the best out of me and it will bring the best out of the other players as well. If we can keep everyone fit, we are going to be real contenders in all four competitions. We have not really had this over the last few years, all of this competition for places. We are all excited and we just have to keep it up now."

Özil is in no doubt the squad have the class needed to last the distance. "You can see in training how technically good this team is and that showed on the pitch, too," he said. "The team supports me so well. We've got some great players in our ranks. They make life easier for me on the pitch and I am thankful to them for that.

"Our aim is to play attractive and successful football. We did that against Napoli. What is important for us is that we take the next step forward as a team. We want to keep on developing."